Senseless
by Silver Crimsonthorn
Summary: The tales of the trials and journeys of the Famine guild of the NA Ruairi server. Rated M as a precaution. Strong language and graphic scenes will ensue.
1. It Has Begun

Chapter 1

_Her eyes darted about, growing wide and wild as her friends and companions fell around her, her spells doing nothing to reverse or even soften the blows being dealt by their opposition. Her lips curled up in a snarl as one of her companions was thrown against a wall, a sickening crack coming from his spine. She re-equipped quickly, pulling out her Hermit Staff, her rage fueling her mana on into a snapcast fireball. She hurled the volatile conflagration into the crowd as they closed in, sharp, yellowed fangs and fetid breath growing readily apparent-_

I awoke with a start, my breath hitching in the back of my throat, every muscle tensed as I came out of my nightmare...or was it? I thought back a few weeks, and I remembered quite clearly going into that dungeon with the other beta testers...but none of us remembered how we got out again. My cat stirred next to me, noticing my residual fear from my REM sleep, and he pawed at my knee as though to reassure me that I was safe. "I know, I know...rotten little fuzzbutt," I murmured to him as I picked him up to bring him to my face so I could nuzzle his side.

As cats are want to do, he took offense to the forcibly taken cuddles and stalked off, his tail raised high and his brow sunken into a bored glare at the world. I stretched, moaning softly as I felt several joints pop back into place, before swinging my legs off the side of the bed and pulling on an oversized tee.

Meandering across cold tile, my feet brought me to the first morning goal-the coffee pot, which had run likely a half hour before I awoke. It was a Saturday, no need to rush anywhere or do anything on any real schedule, a fact that pleased me to no end. Today was the day that the NEXdive patch went live, and I could finally use what I learned during the beta test. Controlling everything that I did to the last detail, even the nuance of flicking my wrist to give my fireballs the proper trajectory or putting my whole arm into throwing an ice spear at a line of enemies, was, I must admit, quite addicting. In there, I didn't feel the pain I had felt every second of every day for as long as I could remember. In there, I could run, jump, climb, be hit and flung against a wall...none of it fazed me. In there, I could even _fly_. Out here, I was weak, playing with a handicap as my body held me back from doing things I used to enjoy. Now, out here, some things just caused me too much pain to be worth doing.

I poured myself a cup of coffee, grabbing a tall, sturdy black mug off the counter and filling it most of the way before taking it to the freezer and dropping in a few ice cubes. I walked across the room to the coffee table in front of the couch and sat down, taking a swig and setting down the mug before picking up the box and slitting the packing tape binding the box shut with my thumbnail. I slid the styrofoam packing out of the box and took out my NEXdive headset, unwrapping the cords and plugging everything in appropriately like I had been doing for months. I braided my hair off to the side and slipped the helm on, adjusting the chin strap as you would the strap on a bike helmet; the design wasn't dissimilar. I slid the visor down and watched as the loading icon appeared on the screen, nodding slightly in approval when each stage progressed to the next properly and successfully. '_Firewall. Check. Bioscanner. Check. Mental uplink. Check. Ready to dive? Yes._'

My mental affirmation made, the NEXdive proceeded to login. I input my login data, selected a character, and the world went black.

o-o-o-o-o

Emerinne stretched lazily as the world faded into view, blinking a few times to adjust to the morning light in Dunbarton square. No joints popped, nothing snapped or crackled...her muscles simply loosened from a tightness she didn't know she had been holding. She walked slowly towards the pre-determined meeting point, waving jovially at the NPCs and other players that were sociable and waved at her. The unicorn statue looked far more impressive when seen through eyes instead of a monitor, and she waved wildly at her friends that waited there for her.

Her guild was more than a cluster of friends to her, they were family, and with the new implementation of the NEXdive rig, she could give her family hugs as she so pleased provided that they didn't care. She jogged the rest of the way to her guild mates and hugged them both, Kiruah and Mezzapotenza hugging her in return.

"Didn't I tell you how amazing this was? What do you think of it?" Emerinne said, her eyes lighting up as she spoke with her friends, who smiled and nodded.

"You weren't kidding."

"Glad I took your advice and bought the gear. "

Emerinne smiled and ran a hand through her hair, detangling her bangs by finger combing. As she reached the end of her bangs, she looked at her hair. '_Neon red. I missed this._' She swept the bangs if her hair styled after Scathatch behind her ear, like they should be, and sighed as that single strand fell over the rest of her bangs and tickled her cheek. Grumbling made her look up and arch an eyebrow at Kiruah. "What the hell are you doing?"

Kiruah was wildly waving her dreamcatcher about, nearly hitting Mezz squarely in the jaw, who jumped back several feet as the dreamcatcher grazed his face, causing him to land on his bum. Kiruah growled lightly as she stopped, panting slightly from the exertion. "Trying to trans, but I can't seem to get it to work!"

Emerinne nodded softly. "That's one of the things that's changed. Things are less about menus now and more about using your body and mind to control yourself and your abilities. You have to _feel_ what you're aiming to transform into. I wondered how it would work too, given that, while we have the journal, we don't have the menu. The dreamcatcher allows you to peer into the minds and feelings of the various monsters and NPCs which you can transform into. The trans coins contain these dreams to be easily read to collect the transformation. Your diary records the dreams."

Kiruah fished for her diary and fingered through the pages, taking in the recorded dreams and lives of her collected transformations. She closed her eyes and pictured in her minds eye the life of that which she wanted to become, wind swirling about her feet. The wind picked up, becoming a gale that bit and blinded Mezz and Emerinne as Kiruah channeled more power. When the wind died down and Mezz and Emerinne looked, Kiruah had been seemingly replaced by a black dire wolf, fierce eyes glowing a dull red in their sockets as it surveyed them.

Emerinne smiled, clapping softly a few times. "Kudos, Kiru. First trans using the new system is always the most difficult."

Kiruah let the transformation dissipate, the air shimmering around her as she shifted into her normal form, standing up from where she was crouched on all fours. Mezz blinked, then waved at the approaching member coming into his peripheral vision. "Hey there, Frog,"

Em and Kiru waved as well, Bouncingfrog waving back as he continued his approach across the square and the road between the square and the unicorn statue. Kiru quirked her face and the light around her shimmered again as she shifted into a white dire wolf. Em giggled and gestured to Kiruah, whose tail wagged merrily as she sat by Mezz, who had evidently decided that sitting worked just as well as standing and had remained on the ground. "We're happy to see you. I didn't know you were getting the headset too, Mason."

Bouncingfrog grinned. "How could I not? You did talk up a good review. Figured that I could at least check it out."

Several hours passed much in that fashion-kibitzing about nearly nothing in particular, laughing and talking, Emerinne gesturing wildly as she told "No shit, there I was..." stories about her time beta testing the helms.

"-and so then he gave up, dropped his guns and ran in the other direction-"

"Wait, wouldn't that leave you-"

Emerinne laughed. "Without my meat shield, my spell half charged, my armor broken as hell, and a pissed ogre warrior staring me in the fucking face. You cannot_ believe_ how pissed I was when I found myself at the statue with him peering sheepishly at me as he stood over me with bandages and whatnot at the ready. I demi'd and chased his ass clear to Tir!"

Mezz laughed loudly and took a swig of the Vales Whisky that Em had handed him earlier. "You guys seriously went around doing this shit?"

Em coughed on her ale and nodded, raising the bottle in a wassail-type motion to no one in particular. "Hells yea! We did just about everything that we could think of to put the helms through the ringer and test how well the new skill accesses worked."

Frog blinked and stopped her. "Just about? What didn't you do?"

Em bit her lower lip and looked sideways at the cobble stones. "Well..."

She was cut off, much to her appreciation, by akaininja's arrival with a loud, happy, "Hey peoples!"

She looked up at him and smiled. "Hello, Kenny dear. How are we, this fine Erinn day?"

He grinned and sat down. "Pretty ok. Yourselves?"

Nods and smiles all around pointed towards at least doing decently. Mezz turned on Emerinne then and asked the question she dreaded. "So, what was it you were saying again?"

akaininja perked up at that. "We were saying something?"

Emerinne sighed and took a long drink of her ale and closed her eyes. "That place is a pit of despair and nightmares that should never be traversed by anyone that values their sanity. I know. We tried." She sighed and bit her lip again, her knuckles growing visibly white around the bottleneck of her ale. "We failed. We all died. Even through intermediate and advanced magic, masters of their combat styles, and my healing with my equipment on. All of us. And none of us remember how we revived. We only remember a warmth and a light...then nothingness. Until we each found ourselves in places that we considered safe and home-like. I woke up in our guild hall as though nothing had happened, my equipment blessed, my wounds healed."

Eyes widened, but it was Frog that spoke up. "Where did you go?"

Emerinne glanced at him. "Peaca."

o-o-o-o-o

Several days passed, each taking time to simply adjust to the new system and the new controls. Some worked on transforming, others on using combat skills, others on accessing their magic. akaininja spent several hours one day grumbling as his Gloomy Sunday droned out of tune when he attempted to play it as several others fretted over the visible wear and tear on weapons-fraying bowstrings, cracking wands, chipped and dulled blades, separating segments of lances and the like. Emerinne shrugged, used to the dents and nicks and scratches on her armor and polished the metal plates, the blue growing more vibrant and some of the scratches fading from noticeability. "It doesn't repair it at all, but it does make it look better," was her proffered reasoning as to why.

It was odd for them, to have been in the game for the time they spent. What felt like days was about two hours time outside of the helm, which warped the wearers perception of the passing of time to make the in-game passage of time feel like an actuality. It wasn't offensive to anyone so far; with amenities in the guild hall-which was now a whole building in and of itself now, not just a room in Rath Castle-everyone seemed happy to stay in the game as long as they normally would. Some came and went, "AFK-ing" to take breaks to stretch legs, get food and drink, use the facilities, but they came back, content to simply adjust to the shock of the new virtual reality aspect to Mabi.

The guild hall was spacious, and Emerinne was proud of her designs. Theirs was the only majorly unique guild hall in Mabi, Em having pulled some strings during development to make her guild an amazing place to call their own. She had looked heavily at gothic churches for aesthetic influences, featuring a large, vaulted ceiling, gothic arches, a rose window and several other gothic architectural designs. The pale stone walls were covered in tapestries featuring beautiful nature scenes and gallant battles in hues that warmed the cold stone and dampened sound in the large, echoing space of the main floor and "hall" to the guild. Long oaken tables lined the main stretch of the hall, wide spaces between the benches that lined them. In the middle of the rows lay a pathway nearly 30 feet across with a warm, intricately designed rug spanning its length and width leading from the door to a large, rounded, stepped dais at the end of the room carved from black marble, silvery veins and golden flecks marring the stone that was otherwise blacker than night.

The dais was large, almost like a raised stage, blood red silk drapes lining each edge where it protruded from the wall, hugging the end columns that began the lines of columns that stretched for 15 feet on each side with a column every 3 feet. A large tapestry sporting the guild symbol hung on the back wall behind two intricate thrones at the center of the dais, a small table between them. From the dais, the whole of the main floor of the hall could be seen; the bar with the access to the kitchens and store rooms full to bursting of food and drink, the entryway to the room holding the guild stone within the guild and the upper floor access, and the whole of the common hall.

The upper floors were less public and more home-like. The second floor held sparring rooms and craft rooms as well as parlors for more private common spaces, and the three floors above them held dormitory space, the top floor having fewer, larger rooms for akai and Emerinne, as well as the senior members. Outside held a garden full of food and herbs and a pasture with a variety of livestock. The hall sat like a bastion of Famine guild camaraderie atop a hill in the middle of the Tailteann hills, the rose window depicting the Famine logo at the forefront in stained glass that sent light shattering in a variety of colors across the common hall at sunset. Yes, she was proud of her work.

It was in the common hall that people gathered at most times, whether it be to eat, talk, or fiddle with equipment and various items. Em laid on a currently unused table near the dais and flicked through her menu screens, setting up a notification that Famine was recruiting to be posted on the party board, and checked her notes, responding to a note about joining the guild from someone that she had been noting back and forth with for several hours. akaininja wandered over and sat down on the bench near her. "Hey Kenny."

He looked over at her. "You designed this place?"

She looked back, seeing her reflection in his carmine eyes. '_That isn't really me...but it's me. My face, for all intents and purposes.'_ She averted her gaze back to her menus and began typing her response note. "I did indeed. I also helped choose what choices would be available for customization on the other halls. But I got to design this one special as a thank you. Korea and Japan did their VR modifications differently, so we got to have some say in how our stuff looked."

akai nodded and looked away, staring at a spot on the floor. "Were they so grateful that they let you design this for us because you didn't leave after-"

Emerinne cut him off. "I don't know. I'd rather not think about why they introduced the chinstraps to the system. That easily could've been me."

akai frowned. "Yea. I know."

Emerinne sighed and looked at her newest note. "Well, it looks like we have a potential member on the way to the guild hall to apply."

akai stood and nodded softly. "You do tend to get potential members that you find to join. I'll leave you to it." With that, he walked towards the bar, calling out to Xig, who was bar tending that day, asking for a drink.

Em sighed and laid her head back on the table, the braided bun of her macha-inspired hairstyle cushioning her head against the firm oak planks as she stared at the enormous, arched doors to the guild hall, waiting for their newest addition to arrive.

o-o-o-o-o

akai flopped down on the rumpled black sheets of his king sized bed and stared at the beams of the ceiling of his room. The guild hall was like something out of a fairy tail, attention given to every detail. He thumbed the silvery embroidery on the edge of one of his pillowcases absentmindedly as he thought about everything that had occurred in the past week. '_A bit more than four hours...how can everything that has gone on this past week only have taken a bit more than four hours?'_ He sighed. Until today, he would have never believed Erinn to be as beautiful as it was...nothing like home, but beautiful.

The floor in the hallway creaked softly and the door next to his opened and shut with a faint creaking and a light _thump_ that was dulled by the existence of his door, but was still audible nonetheless. '_So Willow _does _take time to sleep. It seemed like she hadn't been, though she hadn't been looking worn-down or tired at all.' _He shifted to lay on his side, closing his eyes and reviewing the past days events in his mind as the soft folds of sleep overtook him.

o-o-o-o-o

Emerinne crept up the stairs as silently as possible, and snuck down the hall like a shadow. The creaky floorboards made that difficult, but she managed to make minimal noise while still reaching her door towards the end of the hall. She looked at Kenny's door, the scripted "_akaininja" _gilded on the door. She ran her fingertips across her own IGN inlaid into her own door in the same golden script and smiled softly. She slowly turned the handle on her door and pushed the door open as quietly as possible, the hinges squeaking gently as she opened the door wide enough to slip inside, closing it again after her. She slipped out of her Summer Weave Dress and sat on her bed, laying back in order to slip off her Succubus Boots, which she unceremoniously dropped onto the floor next to her dress. She laid there for a few moments, her alabaster skin and neon red hair sharply contrasting the vivid turquoise of her sheets. She wriggled further into bed and flopped down on her pillows, black embroidery dancing across the pillowcases in delicate vines and filigree.

She closed her eyes and let a faint smile come to her lips as she thought about the day's events, Kenny's face coming to her mind several times. She opened her eyes and looked at the beams that supported her ceiling and the roof of their guild hall, their citadel. She truly loved Famine, and she wanted to show that to her guild by making everything in their home as perfect as possible. Perhaps it was a bit opulent, a bit grand...but it was Famine. It was their home away from home, the place that every guild member might come to rest, rejuvenate, and feel at home.

She sighed and pulled the turquoise silk up and around her body, not bothering to change into new clothes and accepting the presence of the white undergarments as acceptable, given that this was her private room. She nestled down into the covers and pillows, and now comfortable, thought sweet thoughts as she drifted from the world of the waking.

o-o-o-o-o

_A buzzing somewhere between consciousness and dreaming. A nagging feeling. Awake now? No. Too early. Buzzing. Nagging. Buzzing?_

Emerinne growled low in her throat as she was dragged from sleep by a nagging _buzz_ in her mind. She squinted her eyes shut as gold and green light chose then to dance across her face as the dawn sun hit the stained glass window in her room that featured an ivy and wisteria motif. Rolling over, she let her mind slip into the telepathic link that was the new "guild chat".

"_What in the ever living fuck is so damn important that you felt the need to wake me?_"

It was Shelltor. "_Well, good morning to you too, _Sunshine_. I just thought that you might like to know that Candi is here and I made bacon and waffles. There's a coffee waiting for you..."_

She sighed, inwardly and outwardly, before responding. "_I suppose I should get up then. Thank you. I'll be down in a few._"

With that, she threw back her covers and swung her legs out of bed, picking up her Succubus Boots and Summer Weave and putting them back into her dressing room before looking at what she should wear today. She pulled out her Vampire Hunter Outfit and her Magus Crest Boots and pulled them on, muttering at the straps on her top and the ruffles on her skirt which _never_ laid right. She took her hair down from the masses of braids and brushed it out before putting it back up into the style of Asuna that they got during the _SAO_ event. She walked over to her vanity and sat on the small, velvet tufted seat and looked herself over before washing her face. _'My face? I suppose.'_ She looked herself over again, quirking her lips in thought before picking up several of the various cosmetic implements sitting on her vanity. Humming as she did so, she brushed a thin sheen of gold shadow on her lids, following it with a simple red eyeliner on her upper lid and a gold on the lower, finishing with a dash of salmon on her lips. Nodding once and smiling, she stood, replaced the cosmetics and left her room.

The other doors in the upper floor were all labeled with the same filigree as on her door and Kenny's, and all of them were shut. _'I wonder who is still asleep at this time?' _She shrugged and kept walking, practically jogging down the silver spiral staircase that reached every floor except the basement, which was only accessible through the bar. She reached the first floor and meandered to the guild stone, brushing her fingers against it on her way out into the commons to donate her accrued GP. Candiroxx was sitting there on one of the benches near the entrance to the upper levels and waved when she saw Em. Candi swallowed and bid her 'good morning', Em responding in kind, waiting for her longtime friend to put her food down in order to give her a hug.

"It's so good to see you! I didn't know if you were getting the system or not."

Candi grinned. "I got my mom to cave and buy it for me. Now I can wear all of these cute clothes for real!"

Em laughed and returned the grin. "I know, right? Only problem is you actually have to put them on. Trust me, these damn straps didn't fasten themselves, and they didn't cooperate either." Shelltor walked over with a plate of food and a tankard of coffee, just how she liked it. "Thank you, Mamashell. So, _Candi_...how are things with your man?"

Candi flushed and began her response, and Em tucked into her food. They ate and talked, taking their time, joining into the clusters of people filling the hall with life and laughter despite the early hour. Em waved at their newest member when he walked down the stairs and made a point of checking up on him to see if everything was going smoothly. Satisfied with his answer, me nodded and stood up, telling Candi that she would see her after a while before walking towards the bar, empty plate and tankard at hand.

She handed the dishes to Shelltor and looked over at the large cork board that took the majority of the wall next to the bar, thinking quietly. Shell nudged her arm with a refilled tankard, causing Em to snap her head to look at him, '_Hm?'_-ing softly. She smiled and took the drink, sitting on one of the swiveling stools that lined the bar, before staring at the board again.

" 'Sup?"

She responded without looking, still sizing up the board. "Oh, nothing much. Just taking in how empty our job board is."

"Our job board?"

"Yea, like if someone wants, they can take out a contract with Famine to send a member or members of our guild to go do something or fetch something for monetary reward. The guild takes a small fee to help keep the store rooms stocked and all of us fed and the guild hall maintained. That sort of thing."

"Oh. That's kinda a nice idea. come in handy if you're getting strapped for cash."

"That's why I suggested that all guilds get a board. But it's so big, and so empty. We don't just need to advertise for recruiting, we need to advertise that we're taking jobs as well." At that, Shelltor opened his menus.

A few moments later, he looked up. "Notification registered." He smiled, and Em smiled back.

"Thanks." She pushed herself off the bar and began to walk towards the front doors, feeling frisky and the need for mana potions and deciding that there was no time like the present to go raiding the garden for mana herbs and base herbs to make herself a few potions. What stopped her was Candi's exclamation of 'What?!' that echoed through the hall. Em stopped and turned on her heel slowly to look at her friend, who was staring at her menu.

She walked hesitantly to go see Candi, unsure if this was something to be concerned of or not. Reaching the edge of the table where her friend sat, Em called out hesitantly. "Candi...?"

Candi looked back, her face a picture of complete shock. "Em," she croaked softly, "the logout button is missing."

Emerinne's face fell and her tankard shattered, sending shards of glass and coffee all over her boots and the floor. She shakily called her menu, opening the options to find Candi's assessment to be correct.

There was no logout button, and no slot for it.

The voice resounded through the building, nowhere untouched by the system admin message. It was deep and distorted, and struck fear into Emerinne's heart. '_No, it's impossible. There are individual firewalls on the helms, and several firewalls on the server itself. There's no way that someone could have-'_

Her thoughts were interrupted by the voice. "I figure that some of you have discovered by now what I have done. If you have not, please check your menus now. Note the lack of a logout button." Several people checked and gasped, some shared Candi's reaction, others stared in stunned silence. "I know that Nexon gave us a _SAO_ event a while back; some of you may even still have some of the items from it, and some may even have the skills. I, however, was unsatisfied with the event. To truly be a _SAO_ event, we should have been incapable of logging out.

"I chose to make this _my SAO_ event. It seemed fitting to do so since today is the first day of the NEXdive implementation. There is now no way for you to leave the game; if you doubt me, simply ask a beta tester, though I'm more than certain that they will tell you that you should have read the manual, _including_ the warning. Let's just say that there's a reason that they included the chinstrap.

"I trust that Nexon is already scrambling to try to get me out of the system so that they may try to fix what I broke. It will be no easy fix, if they can fix it at all. In the mean time, relax and enjoy my little event for you. It's not like you have much of a choice."

Emerinne immediately delved into her deep place, that humming on the edge of consciousness and dreaming, and put out the call. "_Guild meeting in the hall in 10 minutes. Mandatory attendance. If you are out for the day already, stop somewhere safe so you may at least participate in guild chat. Do not panic."_

Emerinne wrung her hands and paced in front of the dais as people filed in, taking seats at the tables. No one had gone out for the day further than the gardens or their homesteads for herbs or other resources, so everyone filed in and took a seat while waiting for the meeting to begin. The tension and worry in the air was almost palpable. Em noticed akai walking towards a seat and caught him by the arm. "Stand with me?"

He nodded, his face grim. "Yea."

Em looked over the crowd. About half of the bench space was taken, telling Em that it was about time to start. "_Is everyone here?"_

A chorus of affirmation assaulted her mind, quieting as she raised her hands. Her mind voice rang a loud and clear soprano, despite a noticeable waver to it. "_We cannot log out. We cannot remove the helms, nor should anyone else remove them from us. We are prisoners of our own design. This hacker, whomever he or she is, was clever. Each headset has it's own, personal, individual firewall, slightly different from every other firewall for the headsets to try to avoid a mass hacking. The NEXdive server was behind three firewalls, and was thought to be nigh on to impregnable. The fact that this hacker managed to bypass the security and do this is disheartening. But we will survive. _

_"Our prison is an opulent one. We are trapped in Erinn, yes, but we have a whole world that we may explore. We have a home, and we can easily accommodate 250 people at any given time. There is no food shortage in Erinn, nor can there be. For a prison, this is paradise. Our paradise. _

_"We must try to make the most of this situation. I imagine that Nexon has gone about notifying authorities so that our bodies may be preserved while our minds persist in here. I do not know how long it will take to rectify this situation. Nexon may have changed some with time, but this problem is complex. To totally remove an innate function of the game takes work, and to restore it takes more. We may very we'll be here for some time. _

_"This means that everyone needs to do their part. We have a job board, and people will need to take jobs to keep our kitchens stocked. Twenty percent of the fee is delivered to the guild to maintain our pantry and our home. The other 80 percent goes in your pockets. Whether you choose to donate a portion of that is up to you. _

_"Obviously, we will need more volunteers to man the kitchens and the bar so that no one cluster of people is stuck at the guild hall nigh on to constantly so that they, too, can take jobs and get income. Also, anything that could be donated to a guild resource room-weapons, armor, potions, you name it-would be much appreciated. Does anyone have any questions or anything that they would like to add?"_

Silence.

_"Very good. Come see me if you have problems, concerns, or simply need someone to talk to."_

Emerinne exhaled and let her consciousness fade from the humming, her head snapping up as she heard her name. Mezz jogged the length of the hall and looked at her timidly. "There was a warning with the headset?"

Em and akai blinked. "Yes, didn't you read it?"

Mezz shook his head. "I only read how to plug it in. What happens if you take it off? Why is there a chin strap?"

Emerinne's face went blank. "If the unit is disconnected from the game or your head, your mind has issues coping with the fact that time is going severely slower out there than it is in here. The one girl who's helm was knocked off during beta testing had a violent seizure as her brain protested...so violent that part of her brain tissue died. She slipped into a coma right afterwards, and then died a few days later without having woken. I was the only beta tester that stayed on, though I refused to dive again until they devised some kind of precautionary measures against disconnects."

Mezz's face fell, his eyes widening and his mouth pulling taut. "R-really, now?"

Em grimaced and nodded. akai looked at her, and she nodded, not needing words to understand that look. He walked towards the guild stone and warped to the external stone in a wheat field in northeastern Dunbarton.

Mezz arched an eyebrow. "Where's he going in such a hurry?"

Em looked towards the stone and sighed quietly before looking back at Mezz. "To go recruit and look for jobs to post. Not everyone is so lucky as to have a guild hall like ours, if they have one at all." She turned to Candi. "Is there any way that I can convince you to stay and join us? We need to work together to get through this, and I want to make sure that you're alright."

Candi nodded and spoke quietly, still stunned. "Yea. Go ahead and send the invite."

Em nodded quietly and opened her menu, sending the invite to Candi wordlessly. Candi accepted, and Em looked at the notification that popped up in front of her.

"_Candiroxx has applied to join the Famine guild. Do you accept?" _

_'Of course.' _With that, she pressed the accept button and waited for a moment, smiling as the Famine logo appeared next to Candi's name.

"Congratulations, new member. Welcome to the family."


	2. Snow

Chapter 2

Emerinne sat on the ledge, dangling her legs off the side as she rested her chin on the railing. She sighed and stared at the sunset, looking into the glare of Palala without fear of repercussions as dark clouds blew in over the horizon and began to obscure it. '_I feel no pain. These aren't my eyes, this isn't really my body...I can't damage it, not really. Get too close to the sun and you'll get burned? Ha. Hardly applies now, now does it.'_

The buzzing in her mind in that space between consciousness and dreaming began, notifying her of the ping she had received. She waved it off and tried to re-focus, having been processing applicants and job requests most of the day, making her feel more than fed up with people for the moment. '_Go get me this. Go get me that. Take me in and make me look tough as all I do is sit in Dunby square and whine about how bored I am, but look tough because I'm in Famine. _Bah. _We only take your stupid fetching jobs because you offer money in return. If you truly wanted that skill, you'd _work_ for it. If you were that bored, you'd go do something.'_

The buzzing got more intense, mind-numbing even, as more and more pings came in as people attempted to reach her, possibly to try to find her. She acquiesced and slipped into guild chat, willing the buzzing to stop. "_Yes?"_

_"There you are! I've been knocking at your door for the past half hour, Emmie!"_

A sigh. "_Candi. I'm fine, really. I just...needed a break. From everyone and everything. Not that today had been bad or anything...just long and tiresome."_

_"Willow. You're certain that everything is going ok?"_

_"Yes, Kenny. I'm positive."_

There was a terse silence. Em waited several moments more before pulling out of guild chat, pulling herself up from her seat on the edge of the roof of the guild hall. '_Im 8 stories up. I'm acrophobic. But I'm not afraid. It isn't so much the heights as the thought of falling.' _She faced the inside of the roof, her back to the ledge, arms outstretched and her legs together as she let the wind tear at her, shifting her clothing and whipping her hair into a flurry of red. The oncoming storm's chill winds shifted her where she stood, and she _reveled_ in it. The chill of the winds did not faze her, the burn of the sun did not turn her away. Though she knew the winds were cold and damp, when she focused past what her mind told her she should feel and smell, she knew; she was senseless. No true smells could reach her nose, Palala could not scorch her corneas nor her skin. Her mind filled in the gaps, coffee tasting as coffee should, the damp air of the oncoming storm smelling moist and feeling cold, yet humid.

She stepped away from the edge and walked back to the stairwell that lead to the inside of the hall. The roof was like her own little sanctum, a place at the guild hall that nobody else knew was accessible, the stairway access to it hidden in her room. When she got to her room, not taking long to traverse the small spiral staircase from the roof to her room, there was a small, tentative knock at her door. "Will...can I come in?"

Despite the muffling of the door, his voice was unmistakable. As she slid the cover for the stairwell back into place, she replied. "Yea, I suppose so."

Kenny opened her door quietly, slipped in and closed the door behind him. Em gestured to her bed wordlessly, and he moved to sit in the edge as she sat on her vanity stool. He looked her over, trying to decide how he wanted to phrase what he wanted to say.

"How are you holding up? Running the guild has become a full-time job now, eh?"

He looked at her oddly and grimaced. "Yea...I'm more concerned about you though. 'Emerinne the Admin Queen' indeed; you've thrown yourself into so much paperwork that I don't know really when you take the time to eat and sleep." Kenny smoothed out a rumple in her embroidered duvet and quirked his lip. "Turquoise?"

Emerinne rolled her eyes. "Well _I _enjoy it, and it's _my_ room. As for how I'm doing, I'm managing. Moderately concerned about things on the outside, but who isn't? It's been over a month in game. That means over 24 hours has passed on the outside. It's a bit worrisome. As for when I sleep and eat, there's these _magical_ things called 'sleep deprivation' and 'multi-tasking'. I get by."

"It's not good for you, you know. What about the fact that it's been over a day since we got trapped in here has you so worried? Is it the fact that you live alone?"

Em looked away. "That, and what's going to happen to my cat, hm? He can't support himself, and I don't want to think about some of the places that he could wind up going. My family is all on the eastern seaboard. Remember when I moved? It would have been a 46-ish hour long drive if I hadn't stopped. It took me _five days_ with stops. _They_ aren't an option to take care of him. Besides, what if...what..." She sniffled and wiped her eyes gingerly with her fingers and heaved a shuddering sigh. "What if..._nobody_ finds me?" Her voice was small, and broken. "I'll die, my cat will die..."

Her voice got louder, shriller, panicked. She looked up, eyes wide and reddened from crying. "What happens if I am found, but nobody wants my cat, or will even take him grudgingly?! He'll be sent to a shelter, or _worse_! He could be sent to the pound and _euthanized_!"

Kenny sighed and took one of her hands in both of his and started absentmindedly playing with it, thumbing the black metal bracelet protruding from her wrist, seemingly _growing_ from it. "Yea, and you're one of the rudest, meanest, most _hated_ people in your building. You _never_ associate with anyone unless you're being an ass, you would _never_ consider holding a party in the rooftop garden you started, and you _never_ have dinner with your neighbor landlady after she gets back from church on Sundays. _Ever_. I mean, who would do _any_ of that?" She sniffled and looked at him. He looked at her and gave a small smile. "I have a feeling that Norma Jean has likely already unlocked your door after getting no response from you or your phone, which she probably heard when she called it."

Em sniffed and wiped a tear. "Prossibly?"

Kenny nodded. "How about...we go and get you some food. I know you skipped dinner, and that's when people started worrying."

Em sighed and nodded, letting Kenny pull her into a standing position and into a hug. "C'mon, let's go eat. I have a question though."

Em arched an eyebrow at him. " 'Sup?"

He pointed to the bracelet. "What's that?"

Em held up her wrist and pointed at the black metal. "This?" Kenny nodded. "This is what marks me as a dark knight. It's what my armor recedes to when I'm not transed. Yours should be a chain around your neck with a tiny little winged sword pendant."

Kenny arched an eyebrow this time. "That's what that is?"

Em giggled and nodded. "It only shows up on champions and infra blacks. Everyone else is unmarked."

Kenny shrugged and followed Em down the stairs, glad that he managed to get a giggle from her.

/-/-/-/-/

The common room was loud, and several people accosted her as she walked through into the common area, glad to see her out of her room. The chorus of 'hello's was interrupted, quite proficiently, by a loud screech and a deep chortle.

Em looked about and caught a glimpse of Ankou darting across the guild hall like a madman, waving Candi's white bear slipper in the air. She chased after him, throwing books and bread rolls, falling farther and farther behind as Ankou darted off, evidently using Shylock's Step. Candi growled, stopping and stomping her foot in a huff, the boot heel of her Vampire Hunter Boot making a loud _click_ on the floor. "Damnit, Ankou, you _know _I can't run in my vamp hunters!"

The chortle was heard from down the hall, and Candi growled again, taking off her boot and flinging it as far as she could down the hall, stumbling due to the height difference of the remaining boot and falling on her bum as the boot landed no more than ten feet away. Ankou quirked an eyebrow and jogged down the length of the hall, slower now that Shylock's Step had worn off. He sighed and grinned, picking up her boot, then picking her up and slipping the boot on her foot before kissing her on the cheek. "Silly. Here's your slipper."

Candi snatched it back and glared. "You'd better give it back, you son of a blee blop."

Ankou stared, then hugged her. "Goober."

Em giggled and took the plate of food Kenny offered her and took a bite, sitting at a nearby table and shifting her attention to her food instead of the happy couple before her and ate her food in silence.

/-/-/-/-/

Sitting in her sets upon the stage, the deep cherry wood throne with its ornate carvings and tooling complimenting her dress as she plucked at the strings on her guitar, Em hummed to herself, trying to pick out a tune that had been floating around in her head for a bit. She strummed the chords and let the system take over to play what was in her head. The first few strings came easily, and a few heads turned to look at her, lessening the noise somewhat before she began to sing.

_In the middle of night _

_I was far from the flight_

_They freely pass me by_

_Then I'm totally out of space and seeking my friends_

_Is there anyone who needs me?_

More heads turned to look, and the noise lessened further. Candi and Ankou turned to look at one another before shifting their attention back to Emerinne, who seemingly didn't notice anyone or anything but her music anymore, a faint glow coming to her fingertips as they danced over the strings and frets.

_I hear what you say_

_There's the tiniest hope_

_You can change yourself_

_If you want to_

_Then you find the door_

_We can walk from the past_

_I was a frog in a well_

_Smile like you've never done_

_I'm so fine _

_Then you hold me tight under bad weather_

_If you understand why_

_I was crying on the river so_

_Dwell on my self_

_All the time_

About half the guild hall was silenced now, staring with wonder at the glow, some moving closer to hear better, gasping quietly in shock as the music picked up, the faint glowing developing into something more, something greater.

_And you follow the light_

_I was far from the flight_

_They freely pass me by_

_Then I'm totally out of space and seeking my friends_

_Is there anyone who needs me?_

The guild had gone fully quiet now, several of the members further in the back smacking others near them gently for whispering in awe. No eye parted from Emerinne, nor the glow which shone off her red and silver guitar and shattered into a brilliant sparkle that captivated the eyes just as much as the music captivated the soul.

_I hear what you say_

_There's the tiniest hope_

_You can change yourself_

_If you want to_

_Then you find the door_

_We can walk from the past_

_I was a frog in a well_

_Smile like you've never done_

_I'm so fine _

_Then you hold me tight under bad weather_

_If you understand why_

_I was crying on the river so_

_Dwell on my self_

_All the time_

Emerinne sat her guitar next to the holster on her throne meant for her Hermit Staff and looked up, the stunned silence of the guild causing her to smile gently. She spoke softly, though with the silence of the hall and the amphitheater like design behind her, she knew most-if not all-could hear. "Now that I have your attention, I would like to make an announcement. I have accepted applications for several job requests, and several of these, perhaps all, require combat. Combat has changed, and I wish to share my knowledge. There should be room in the large training room on the second floor. If you could all follow me, please?"

Ackilles jogged to catch up with Emerinne, grabbing her hand to catch her attention as she started up the stairwell. "What the _hell_ was that?! You-your hands...your _whole self_...YOU GLOWED!"

Em grinned a little sheepishly, sifting her free hand through the back of her hair as she chuckled quietly. "Yea, I ah...used and Enthralling Performance. Sorry about that, Dan."

Ackilles looked dumbfoundedly at her. "I thought that was only applicable to mobs?"

Em shrugged. "Not really. Players and NPCs won't follow you, but they'll certainly shut the hell up if you use it." With that, her wrist slipped out of Dan's grasp and she jogged up the flight of stairs and walked to the appropriate dojo.

The padded wooden floor of the main dojo took up about three-quarters of the space of the second floor, about three-quarters of the size of the main hall, leaving more than enough room for all of Famine to meet for demonstrations, or simply to have several duels going on at the same time. Emerinne stood in the middle of the room, her hands on her hips and her feet shoulders-width apart as people filed into the room and stood around the edges. After several minutes, people further towards the back we're floating using wings or doki-doki flight to see over others, some being carried by the giant population of Famine, who also had taken the front. Shorter, younger members had taken the front, some in the far front sitting to let others see better. Em nodded firmly once and spoke loudly, making sure that all could hear her. "Are we all situated?"

Em took the lack of dissection to be an affirmation and crossed her arms over her chest and began pacing, keeping her head high and her voice projected. "There have been many changes to combat. Mabi is no longer controlled by menus and hotkeys but by we ourselves, our bodies, our minds and emotions. Evasion is no longer an active skill. It is now represented as a percentage, like protection. The higher your percentage, the higher your chance of dodge into the attack is. The percentage is constantly in flux, taking the amount you move into consideration, as well as your dexterity, evasion rank, and a few other factors. Obviously, you cannot move as well in heavy armor, but it offers more protection than light armor. There is a balance to be achieved, and it is up to you to find your own balance. Those skilled enough can even fearlessly go without armor.

"That being said, please be aware that we have not tested to see whether dying in the game means that you are truly dead. Heathcliff left the feathers in the game, as well as nao stones and guardian stones, but we have no proof that they work. He may have just left them as a cruel joke."

A question came from the crowd. "Heathcliff?"

Em sighed. "That's what I've been calling the bastard that trapped us in here. Rolls off the tongue more easily than Akihiko Kayaba, and it suits the situation, does it not? I digress, however. We are as of yet unsure how revival works currently, so our goal while we are out and about is to keep our asses off the floor and wreaking as much havoc as we can on those that need it. This means that accessing our skills is of the utmost importance. We cannot afford to lose anyone, nor could I bear if we lost someone. You are all my family, and that means more to me than you know.

"I think, however, that _showing_ you how to access your skills will be easier than _telling_ you. When I am not as emotional as I could be, or fear is drowning out all other emotions, i find it easiest to do what I am about to show you-I recommend you utilize this method until you feel more comfortable with what emotions spark what skills. Ankou?"

He perked up from a shoulder top perch and finger saluted her. " 'Sup, Em?"

She nodded and looked towards the floor, tapping her foot on the dojo floor as she spoke. "You once told me that you would duel me for a demonstration if I needed it. I'm calling that promise due." Ankou shrugged, his pauldrons clanking slightly as he did so, slipping down from his perch to sift through the crowd which parted slightly to allow him passage as he walked towards the clear space with his helm under his arm.

"You're sure about this? You're..." He stopped and gestured to her thirteen year old form. "Tiny?"

Emerinne glared and sent the duel request. "I'm sure your reaction will be the same after I've mopped and polished the dojo floor with you, right?"

Ankou glared. "Oh, challenge accepted, tiny woman." He pressed the accept button and re equipped, his good lance now at hand.

Em grinned as the countdown began, pulling out her Hermit Staff and placing it on her back for later use. "Bring it, you clattering, towering oaf."

The countdown ended, and Ankou lashed out with his lance. Emerinne smirked, stepping aside and missing the lance easily. Ankou thrust again. Emerinne was, again, in a new location by the time his lance got to where she had been.

Ankou glared through his visor. '_Damn, she's fast.' _

Em scoffed and rolled her eyes. "Where were you aiming, Ankou? I'm over here, or are you_ too slow_ _to catch me_?"

Ankou scowled, triggering Shylock's Step. '_Let's see how slow she thinks I am now.'_

Emerinne smirked and quickly re equipped into her rapier, holding it at the ready as he ran towards her. '_Breathe. Focus. Time. And strike.'_

Sidestepping moments before impact, Em crouched and drew her blade along Ankou's side, causing him to hiss in pain as he passed. She changed weapons, storing the rapier at her side and drawing her staff as she stood, turning to face her opponent. He looked at his armor incredulously, staring at the small gap between his greaves and his cuirass where she had slid her blade as he had passed, then looked at her, growling lightly at her smirk.

He ran towards her, and they traded blows for several minutes, and while Ankou hit the ground several times, he never hit her. She caught his lance, she caught his shuriken once he re-equipped. He changed weapons again, darting towards her, enraged that she was dodging or parrying every blow. This new system was annoying him to no end, and she was no fighter! His lance felt lighter with every step, his legs moved faster, and he broke into a charge.

Em smiled and darted out of the way of his charge, but was caught by surprise as Ankou spun, catching her with a windmill. '_Shit. If he's using skills like that now, he must be pretty pissed._' She scrambled to get up, rolling out of the way of his assault slash, her eyes widening as she back flipped further away from Ankou as he prepared a smash. She tensed, readying her counter. As he moved to attack her, she sidestepped and thrust quickly into the gap in his armor again. She used his shock to move a ways away, readying herself to use her magic, pulling out her staff as she ran.

She began to cast her spell, narrowing her eyes to focus her mana.

_Oh, source of all power, light which burns beyond crimson, let thy power gather in my hand. Fireball!_

Her words sped her casting, and Ankou stared wide eyed in awe as she flung the fiery ball of mana in his direction, snapping her wrist to send it straight at his head. He took off in the other direction and her spell missed, but she seemed to pay no heed, already in the midst of casting her next spell.

_Source of all power, raging thunder from the sky, gather in my hand and grant me power. Digger volt!_

Ankou blanched as she sent the thunder spell at him, lunging as she thrust her staff outward towards him. The bolt hit him square in the chest, stunning him. She, yet again, was already casting her next spell, her hair flowing as if caught in a breeze as she channeled massive amounts of power.

_Power beyond the twilight and crimson beyond blood that flows, buried In the stream of time is where your power grows. I pledge myself to conquer all the foes who stand before the gift bestowed in my unworthy hand. Dragon slave!_

The red circles of power that grew around her feet stilled, glowing fiercely as she cast her spell, guiding her staff down from its position towards the heavens to the ground at Ankou's feet. A rumbling was heard, and from the ceiling approximately 50 feet above their heads came a meteor, small but blazing brightly. It landed squarely on Ankou, still stunned from the follow up bolt of Emerinne's thunder, landing him flat on his back.

Em walked over to Ankou and offered him her hand after the flames died down. He took it and grunted as she pulled him to a standing position. "Now you know why I had set the damage taken to 0%?" He nodded weakly.

Em looked at everyone around her in stunned silence. Ankou walked back towards his position in the crowd, getting assaulted by a worried Candi who poured a full round of healing spells into him, despite his protests.

Em sighed and put her staff back on her back, projecting her voice again to the crowds as she paced. "Yes. I know. Those were spell incantations from _The Slayers_. I could've gone simpler and emulated other animes where they simply scream the name of the move as they use it. But that is inelegant, and I prefer to do things...with a flair.

"Emotions play a role. I use rage to fuel attacks, serenity and love to fuel my healing and curative. I'm worried and overprotective when I use a shield spell. I'm defensive or offended when I defend myself or use a retaliation. When you successfully use a skill, the emotion will come with it. Use the skills to learn the emotions. Learn the emotions so you might better use the skills. That is all, I believe."

A slow clapping came from somewhere in the crowd, and others picked up on it. Em smiled softly and blushed in the embarrassment from the sudden applause. scythe44 came up to her and smiled, requesting practice with her at some point to see if he could learn the emotional cues she had used to so sufficiently use such powerful magic. "The skills and stats without the training mean nothing, right?"

Em nodded. "Indeed, Kyle. Lemme know here in the next few days and we can see about working out a schedule?" He nodded and walked off, talking at someone on his way out of the room with the others.

Em sat down on the dojo floor, making sure that the room was empty before she flopped backwards and laid there, her arms and legs stretched out, the skirt of her Vampire Hunter Outfit proving insufficient to cover the black spanx underneath as she took a repose. She heaved a shuddering sigh, willing the tenseness and the faint trembling to stop, her body protesting the rapid use of that much mana. '_I'm out of practice. My body hasn't protested this much to rapid mana loss in so long...'_

She sighed, and surrendered to the nurturing and restorative arms of sleep.

/-/-/-/-/

Of all the things to notice when she awoke, Em was first caught by the sudden and astonishing lack of footwear. Rubbing her eyes and shifting slightly, she spoke in a cross between a mumble and a whine. "Who stoleded my boots?" She pouted and curled into a loose fetal position, pulling her covers in close, her eyebrows knitting together in confusion and annoyance.

A hand stroked her hair and smoothed the fur trim on her hood, and a voice spoke softly to her. "Morning, Willow."

She cracked an eye open and looked at the one who had spoken to her, mumbling a response sleepily. "Dan? How did I get into my bed?"

He grinned, chuckling softly. "Nobody had heard from you since just after the duel. You weren't responding to pings, so we started looking around. I found you in the dojo, asleep in...a pretty unladylike position, might I add. I couldn't quite get you up the stairs on my own, so I found Ankou, and had him carry you up the stairs and into your bed. I took your shoes off and covered you up, then left you to sleep. Was just coming in to check on you when you woke up."

Em sat up, and took off the over-layer off the top of her Vampire Hunter, leaving the band beneath and tossing the overcoat across the room before snuggling back down into her covers, mumbling further communications. "Whutimezit?"

Dan paused for a moment before responding. "About 3 in the morning. You have a few hours to sleep yet." He smiled as Em rolled onto her stomach, curled around her pillow and promptly fell back to sleep, a small smile on her face. He checked the windows to ensure the wind hadn't blown any of them open at all to let the foul weather and the chill in. Sufficiently satisfied that his officer was in no risk of an unnecessarily chill morning, he left her to her sleep and moved to take a rest of his own.

/-/-/-/-/

Em sat wrapped in her duvet on her favorite bench at her favorite table that morning. While her windows hadn't opened, nor had the door that opened to the roof, everyone in the guild was snowed in, the storm having dropped about two feet that drifted clear to ten in some places, and the snow was still coming down. Em didn't like the cold overly much, and was more than happy to act like the child that she appeared to be, dragging her beautifully embroidered duvet down the stairs with her that morning as she sported proudly the obnoxiously fuzzy slippers that she had made on her own and her bear pajamas(being uncaring that they didn't fit properly as they were for males and electing to wear them anyway), all topped off with her Hebona Robe, the wonderful red and cream velvet insulating her well against the chill that seeped through cracks that appeared in her duvet.

She sighed, making a mental note to touch up the embroidery on her duvet, the enchantments woven into the black silk threads wearing off and letting the chill through more than before as she sipped her coffee. Pouting, she listened to the shouting in the kitchen and sighed. She sat her coffee in the table and grabbed her duvet, and shuffled her way to where dengekihime sat. She waved with her duvet in hand and peeked her head a bit further out of the warm, turquoise sanctuary. "Do you know what's going on in there? Breakfast is late."

Hime shrugged. "I think they're arguing over what to make. Eh, whatevers I guess, right?"

Em shuddered and took off the duvet and handed it to Hime. "Could you take this to my room, please? I don't wanna cook in it." Hime gave her an odd look, but shrugged and wordlessly acquiesced.

Em walked into the kitchen and sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose in frustration as Mezz and Xig _and_ Shelltor argue over what to cook. She grabbed the second cup of coffee that had been prepared and waited for her and threw it at the far wall, smiling in annoyance as it hit the wall, shattered, and drew all attention to her.

She jerked her arm up to point out of the galley. "Follow my lead or get out. Now." They looked sheepishly at her, then one another, and stiffened.

"What you need us to do, bosslady?"

Em sighed and rolled her eyes. "Shell, big mixing bowls and a whisk. Mezz, get me about 30 eggs. Xig, I need about 3 bottles of milk." She wandered over to the spice rack and pulled off a few jars and sat them next to the bowls that Shelltor sat on the counter, then reached over to a shelf and pulled out loaves of bread and started throwing them to the others in the kitchen. "Start cutting these while I'm making the egg mixture, please."

Between the four of them, an excess of food was made, including but not limited to: waffles, pancakes, french toast, bacon, sausage, eggs of several varieties, toast, biscuits...a veritable feast that was laid out in serving dishes on the table nearest the kitchens. After the initial shock of her ultimatum, things grew less tense and much more lighthearted, the group beginning to joke around. The others watched Em with some degree of awe as she cooked things outside of recipe books. "Provided that you know what you're doing, the game can make it work and approximate the taste messages you send to the system when you're recollecting the item can be broadcast to others and tell them how it should taste."

After stopping to eat something, Em went back into the kitchen, a wild impetus to do like she used to when the snow drifted deep, and began throwing together massive batches of gingerbread and pumpkin bread. Smells of clover, ginger, cardamom, cinnamon, and other rich, exotic spices permeated the entire guild hall. Shelltor and Xig came back down into the kitchen to give Em a break once all that was left was to throw the bread pans into the massive ovens and keep cycling the bread pans in and out of the oven until all of the loaves had been baked.

Em walked up out of the kitchen, flour and batter smudged on her face. She wandered towards her table, jumping at a loud _bang_ that echoed through the hall, looking towards the source of the noise. '_What the hell are they doing?'_

She approached the front of the guild hall, warily looking at what was occurring between the wide open main doors of the guild hall. The braziers that had been brought out to line the main walkway rattled with every shock, sending ashes floating high. "Damnit!"

Em put a hand on Candi's shoulder as she sat and watched the guild members that were attempting to remove the massive snow drift blocking them in, her husband amongst their numbers. Candi looked back and smiled. "Smells great, Emmie."

Em looked at her and quirked her lips into a half smile. "Are they seriously trying to attack an inanimate object. Or objects, really, since the game counts each snow crystal. Once they're in a drift though, really the only thing that melts them is warm weather and Palala."

Candi shrugged. "I guess they think that if they get it just right, something will work eventually. Gomen, I really don't know more." She laughed.

Em giggled and walked back towards the kitchens. As she reached the bottom of the stairs, she heard arguing. "What now?" she droned as she rounded the corner.

Xig sighed and looked at her. "Sorry, we've just lost two of the bread pans. They were here on the edge of the counter, but now we can't find them. It's like they vanished." Em arched an eyebrow and examined the edge of the counter and the area around it.

In her examination, she discovered something odd, her brow furrowing at the discovery as she held it up for the others to see. The shimmering pink and white of the colour changing fabric on the Bonita Twin Ribbon-admittedly without its twin-was quite out of place. "Nobody that has been down here hypothetically even _owns_ Bonita Twin Ribbons. Unless we have an urchin somewhere in the kitchen."

Em pulled out the device that allowed for pet summons and spoke into it clearly, summoning her nine-tailed fox, Guineu. Its tails waved merrily as she gave it a small pet before giving it its order. "Go find our intruder, Guineu."

It sniffed about and slipped in around boxes and crates, over tables, under counters and checked over every inch of the kitchen and store rooms. Right as me was about to unsummon it, nothing having been found, Guineu emitted a strange cross between a yip and a bark. Em walked to the corner of the last store room where her fox was investigating and gasped. A small girl with a missing hair ribbon and wearing a Fleta-bought dress looked warily at her, half a loaf of pumpkin bread sitting in her lap and a loaf of gingerbread sitting next to her.

She smiled and crouched down, extending her hand to the girl. "My name is Emerinne. I'm the officer of Famine. It's nice to meet you. Mind if I ask what your name is?"

The girl hesitantly took her hand and shook it once before going back to being curled into a defensive position. Her voice came out small and strangled, a slight lisp to it. "Momma says I shouldn't talka strangers."

Em stopped and frowned slightly, her brows knitting together in confusion. "Momma? Sweet pea, how old are you?"

The girl tightened further into her ball. "Momma said I could play on the compooper while she was away at work 'aday 'n Miss Lucy said she didn't care so I gotted ons my momma's mabi 'count and gotted on my girl, but I can'ts get out nows. It gotted all cold and snowy-blowy so I cames inside and hided. But I had a hungry, 'specially 'cuz your baking mellied so good, so I taked some breads from the counter. I sorry."

Em sighed and pulled a small knife out, took the bread from her and sliced what was left in the pan before handing it back to her. The girl looked at her with wide eyes. "That doesn't tell me how old you are, sweetie."

The girl smiled around a mouth full of food and held up four fingers. Em frowned. "And your name?"

The girl swallowed and looked at her funnily. "Can'ts you just sees it next to me?"

Em shook her head. "I can't. I prefer having my names off when I can now that we play the game like we do."

The girl shrugged. "Alizee's name is Alizee. Ah-lee-zay!"

Em smiled softly at her. "Well, Alizee," she began, pulling down her menu and sending the small girl an invitation to join the guild, "how would you like to join Famine? We can feed you, and house you, and keep you safe."

Alizee's eyes went wide. "Reallys?"

Em nodded. Alizee hit the apply button, and the notification popped up in front of Eme, who then accepted the application and offered a hand to Alizee. "C'mon, that bread is sweet. You need real food before you can have dessert. We can also look at getting you something warm to wear. Would you like that?"

Alizee gave a toothy grin and took Em's hand, standing and following her up the stairs.

/-/-/-/-/

Later that evening, after everyone had gone back to get more food, abandoned the quest to free themselves from the snow drift of doom at their door, Em smiled contentedly. '_The guild is happy, Alizee is happy and warm and fed, we have everything we need and then some. This is the place to be at a time like this. Home, with family.'_

The voice rang out loudly, high and feminine, and laced with worry. '_A system admin message? What's going on now?'_

"We understand that while it has been less than 48 hours for us, it has been more than a month for you players in the game. We thank you sincerely for your patience. Unfortunately, we still have not managed to fix the code that the hacker broke. We cannot even find it yet.

"Unfortunately, this means that you all are still stuck in the game. We are working round the clock on finding the solution to this. Until then, everyone that purchased the headset has been given in list form to local authorities and hospitals, and they are looking into making sure that everyone that may be trapped is found and safely transferred to a hospital.

"Until such a time that we might inform you that the game has been repaired and you may once again log out, we will be striving to make sure that you have the best possible experience. In the mean time, we have added a slider in the pon shop that will allow you to let your actual features appear on your character if you so choose, and how much they will show through. You can manipulate this feature for free. Thank you for your patience, and enjoy the new feature."

Em sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose between her index finger and thumb. "At least they sound concerned and took appropriate steps to ensure that nobody goes unfound."

Alizee looked at Em and took a sip of her hot chocolate. "Miss Willow?"

Em looked at her and smiled. "Yes, sugar?"

Alizee fidgeted in her seat and played with her mug. "Can Alizee stay here with Miss Willow until the button comes back?"

Em looked at her in shock. "Of course, sweet pea." Alizee gave another toothy grin and opened her pon shop and adjusted the sliders to let her features come fully through. She shortened some, and her hair became a wild, messily curly mop of gold, freckles plastered themselves all across her face and her eyes turned a vivid, vibrant blue. Em smiled. "You're a very pretty little thing, Alizee."

Alizee gave a small smile as she blushed. "Tank you, Miss Willow. "

Em pointed towards the stairs. "Bedtime for you, Missie. Let's go to my room and get you snugged in for the night, hm?"

Em giggled as Alizee took off towards the stairs, tripping slightly on the now too-long muffler robe that she was wearing. '_It's gonna be a long game, isn't it?'_

She stood up and walked after Alizee, knowing full well she could rest easier tonight.


	3. Review and Learn Well

Chapter Three

Em moaned softly as she awoke from a nice dream to find her chest wet, a puddle of drool stringing from Alizee's mouth to the reservoir forming in her cleavage. She groaned as she rubbed her eyes and then wormed out from under the still-sleeping child, smoothing her hair and petting her head when she whimpered in protest. She dried her chest and ran the bath water in the tub in her room.

By the time the water was run, Em had added soaps and oils to the bath water and was undressed and stepping into the tub. She sank into the hot suds and sighed in contentment, scrubbing lazily at her skin with a soaped rough sponge. '_It was nice that they added small touches like this. How long ago was it? A day? Two? The days have started blurring...'_

Em sighed as she continued to bathe, working the scented cleansing oils into her hair. They had been in for a year, or what felt like it. To them, a day was a month...a week was a year. If it wasn't for the calendars that some intelligent player had taken the liberty of producing, she would have lost track of the days already. She rarely showed her features, especially not in public. She pulled up the dressing room menu and sighed, running all of the slides down to show her own features. She stared long and hard into her own hazel eyes, ringed with gold and flecked with reddish brown, stared at every freckle that marred her alabaster completion and strayed on her eyelids and the edge of her lips, at the supple pink flesh of her lips, the reddish gold of her eyelashes and the fierce mop of auburn ringlets. She pulled her knees to her chest as she stared at herself, memorizing her face. '_This is me. My face. Willow Nya Jadis, twenty something, Leo, American of UK and other European descent with a splash of Native American...me.'_

She sighed and stretched out, dunking her head under the water and rinsing the oils from her hair. Sitting up and running her hands over the swells of her breasts and the planes of her stomach to remove suds before standing and toweling off slightly, she prepared to step out of the tub, and once out, finished the job. She wrapped the towel around herself and walked across the room, reaching under the gold cover riddled with green embroidery to grab and tickle a foot and play with toes until Alizee was up, giggling and begging for mercy.

"C'mon, then...te laves. C'est chaud."

Alizee nodded and stripped and hopped in and Em busied herself with washing her and brushing the tangles in her hair out with a wet brush, then turning her attentions to her own hair with the brush as Alizee played in the suds for a few. The question was hesitant, but came across all the same. "Maman, comment est-ce que tu es si belle?"

Em stared at her in disbelief. "Do you really think that you aren't every bit as beautiful as I am, if not more so, mon petit chou?"

Alizee blushed. "Well..."

Em sighed and pulled Alizee's face to meet her own gently and slowly, guiding her with a single fingertip under her chin. "You are so, so pretty, Alizee. Your hair is like a soft summer wheat, and your eyes are the colour of the sky after a vicious storm, when it's at its bluest and most beautiful as though apologizing for the foul weather. _Never_ let anyone tell you that you aren't beautiful." Alizee smiled softly and nodded.

Em ushered her out of the tub once her own hair was brushed and shooed her with a towel over to sit on her stool. "Have we really been in the game a year, Maman?" Em looked around her, brush in hand, to look at her in the mirror before busying herself with pulling Alizee's hair into an adorable half up-do.

Alizee pouted and growled slightly as Em gave her face another thorough washing and started to go through her dressing room looking for something nice for her to wear. "It has been a week on the outside, not a year, but yes. Mentally, all of us trapped in the game are a year older."

Alizee jumped up and climbed onto the stool and grabbed Em's face, a hand on each cheek. "We should have a party then! A guildie birfday!"

Em grabbed wrists and raised arms after stabilizing the stance before shoving a dress over a head and shoulders. Alizee pulled at the hem and pouted. "Birthday, dear. Slow down and enunciate," chided Em.

Alizee sighed and tugged at the dress again, enunciating slowly and clearly. "I do not like these ruffles. They are itchy."

Em rolled her eyes and pulled the dress off her and threw it across the room and pulled out another dress, holding it up. "This one?" Alizee grinned and nodded, and Em handed it over for Alizee to put on. "Finish getting dressed, dear."

Em pulled out her own dress and pulled it on and slipped on her Scathatch Shoes before picking up Alizee and setting her on the floor, where she promptly flopped down and began to growl and roll around as she attempted to pull on her boots. Em glanced over and rolled her eyes before going back to her cosmetics. She pulled her menu up and pulled her sliders back over to conceal most of her appearance, leaving just her excess of freckles showing through. Black and gold eyeliners, silver eyeshadow, gold mascara and a thin layer of white powder to blend her skin tone and she was ready. She sighed, bent down, and helped Alizee pull her boots on and arched an eyebrow at the style. '_I can't really say it looks bad, per se..._'

Em opened the door to their room and Alizee took off down the hall and slid down the banister, causing Em to grimace and sigh. She had adopted the child, and sometimes Alizee's recklessness worried her. It was still unknown if revival was a possibility, or if revival items and options meant nothing. She had come to love the girl as her own, and Alizee frequently scared Em shitless because of that affection.

Em walked quickly down the stairs, her Crinoline Dress swaying with each step, her heels soft clicking amplified by the stone walls of the stairwell. She reached the bottom and came out into the entryway to the upper floors, making the loop she knew so well to brush her hand on the guild stone and donate her GP on her way into the common area.

Alizee sat at the table where they always sat, already tucked into her food. She nodded and took the coffee offered to her by Candi, smiling in thanks. Today was going to be a long day, and she didn't want Alizee to suffer for it. Candi looked at her and frowned. "You should eat, you know. They'll be fine, and you're going to need your energy today. Can't very well focus on your meeting when you're famished, now can you?"

Em rolled her eyes and pouted at Candi's choice of words and sighed. "I suppose you're right...and they're taking an insanely overpowered party for calculus for three...but you know how I worry. Ankou's going too, isn't he?"

Candi nodded and sighed. "Don't get me wrong, Emmie. I worry too. But they'll be fine. They always are, right?"

/-/-/-/-/

The team geared and left that morning just after breakfast and Em geared for her own battle, pulling on an open-front version of their guild robe, the burnt umber hardly flattering against the colors of her dress, but necessary. She pulled Alizee to the side and crouched down so she might look the child in the eyes. "Maman is going to be holding a meeting with people that we didn't allow entrance right off because they didn't seem the Famine 'type'...they do get an appeal, but I'm not overly fond of this group of people. Maman conducted their primary interview, and I can't say I'm fond of them, _or_ the idea that they may be joining Famine."

Alizee's eyes went wide. "Oh. So these people aren't very nice peoples, Maman?"

Em shook her head and sighed. "No, they aren't very nice at all, Dear. Which is why I want you to go play 'Hypotheses' with Mister Zwart, alright? He should be where he normally is, so you should go ahead and go with Mister Lion to see Mister Zwart, alright?"

Em looked at Lion and mouthed 'Thank you,' before standing again and looking towards the front doors. '_It's almost time..._'

Her voice rang out clearly and pierced the air of the guild hall. "Places, everyone!"

There was a tearse shuffling as people moved into position in anticipation. Em sat on her seat on the dais and stared impassively at the door, gently brushing the bangs of her Dowra-inspired updo out of her eyes. Guild members took seats all along the tables of the common room, weapons available in case they became necessary. Em ran her thumb along the smooth wood of her staff, gritting her teeth as the door opened and one man walked in, followed by four others. They sauntered down the hall, sneering at the Famine members that shifted uneasily in their seats. Emerinne narrowed her eyes slightly and raised her chin as the group continued down the hall.

They kneeled about ten feet from the dais and inclined their heads, the leader speaking with a sneer as he stood. "So I hear we're here for our appeal on your nay-say on our application. I'd just like to thank you for this. Now, where's our invites?"

Emerinne frowned, her brows drawing together as she tried to not scowl at the group. "This is an appeal, _not_ a 'we-are-ever-so-sorry-we-did-you-wrong-by-saying-no' meeting. Why should I reconsider my denial of your application?"

The leader of the group chuckled and started cleaning out from under his nails as he spoke derisively to Em. "My sources say you took in one of the Mari, adopted her as your own and are raising her here, in this guild. Would be...a real pity if something were to happen to her. Since the whole guild seems to be out for this event save for the assault team that went out for a job this morning, but she's not here...I'd say she's either with the assault team or up in the rest of your guild hall. Lovely place you have here, by the way."

Em blanched and drew to the place in her mind between consciousness and dreaming as quickly as she could, saying something noncommittal and monosyllabic to appease the leader of the group. "_Zwart, Lion, I need you."_

_"What's goin' on?"_

_"Aye, Milady Emerinne? You requested my presence?"_

_"Is Alizee safe?"_

_"I don't really see-"_

_"IS SHE SAFE?"_

Lion was taken aback by her sudden, frantic outburst. "_Yea, Em, everything is cool. Why?"_

_"That room has no window and a single door, yes?"_

_"Indubitably, Milady."_

_"Zwart, Lion, lock the door and keep on guard. There may be an assault coming for Alizee."_

_"Understood."_

The exchange took mere moments to complete, and as Em withdrew from the link that served as guild chat, she thanked the stars that the fool before her had taken no notice of her dive into guild chat. She stood, interrupting his boastful prattle. "Yes, yes, you said all of these same things at your initial interview. Here is what I would like to know, however; what gives you the impression that threatening my family, whether it be my child or my guild, is a wise choice?"

He paused momentarily. "You _stupid bitch. _I was speaking!"

Emerinne scoffed and rolled her eyes. "You were spewing enough shit out of your mouth to make the entire guild hall smell like a latrine, you incompetent, arrogant, boastful _insect_ of a male." She drew to her full height and glared wrathfully at the group before her, her chin raised. "I will not have such quivering, bilious _filth _in my guild." She spat her words, fully taking on the persona of a Drow Matron. She shed her robe and took the kunais that she had strapped to her forearm, flinging one at the shadow of the leader of the group before her, tacking it to the floor with shadow bind.

She slowly began to make her way down the stairs and sneered as she hit the bottom step, flinging a kunai at the group. It flew true, and sliced the jugular of the leader, embedding itself in the shoulder of the one behind him before exploding. She smiled slightly at the fear in his eyes as he clamped his hand over his neck while fishing for a healing potion, unable to take his eyes from the shredded face and neck of his now fallen companion. The others mumbled words of regret and fear before running out of the hall. Em laughed coldly, the sound reverberating through the hall, loud, clear, and bone chilling. Candi shivered, the sound setting her on edge.

"I warned you, you simpering _fool. _I told you that it was unwise to give me a reason to loathe you at our last meeting." She crouched and gripped his face with a single hand, puckering his lips as she dug her nails into his cheeks, her eyes shining with hatred and cruelty as she spoke in barely above a whisper to him. "You threatened both my child and my guild. You threatened all at I hold dear in a single instant. For that, _jaluk_, I think you deserve _everything_ that I can deal to you and more. You should know that your foolishness at angering a Matron Mother will be forgiven...but _not_ unpunished."

His eyes went wide. She smiled coldly and raised her hand, chain casting firebolt. She held it there for a moment before giggling and flicking her wrist, sending the flames at the male, smiling in satisfaction as they hit him square in the face, sending him flying backwards to collapse in a lifeless mass on the floor.

The guild hall was silent, on edge. That was when Emerinne barked the order, still crouched. "Everyone, fan out! Check the rest of the guild hall, inside and out, for possible intruders. Zwart and Lion are locked in the magic lab with my daughter...and I _will not_ have that door unlocked until we can be sure she's safe."

Em nodded at the faint shuffling as the rest of the group shuffled off, listening to their soft murmurs as she stood. She caught Otai by the elbow on his way through. "Help me move these?" He swallowed hard and nodded. Between the two of them, moving the two bodies didn't take long. They added some wood to the pile and lit the makeshift pyre.

"Em," Otai began, "you killed them. You...you..."

Em nodded and sighed, coming down from her adrenaline high. "I did. But I did it for the sake of my family, and I'll take the consequences when they come."

Otai nodded. "Let's hope that they aren't too severe."

/-/-/-/-/

Em and Alizee laid on the roof and stared at the stars of a now familiar sky. Em prided herself on her stargazing skills out of game, and pouted as she found that there was no familiarity in this sky occluded by two moons. Alizee seemed alright with simply making their own asterisms, however, so that is what she and Em had done that night.

"It's just about time for bed, Alizee."

Alizee gave a classic, high pitched whine. "Really, Maman? But I isn't sleepy."

Em glanced over and saw in the silvery-blue light of Eweca that Alizee was rubbing her eyes and pouting softly. She smiled softly, and spoke tenderly. "If you go inside and start to get ready for bed now, I'll give you a present."

Alizee perked up at that and scrambled down the secret stairwell, hurrying out of her clothes and boots and scrambling to put on her nightie. She sat impatiently on the bed when Em got down the stairs and triggered the mechanism to conceal the doors. Em sighed and rolled her eyes and pulled out a box, walked across the room, and handed it to Alizee. "Here, Goober."

Alizee opened the box hastily and looked inside and gasped. Inside were the neon purple engraved control bars that Em had never bothered to sell, and beneath them, a master colossus marionette, armor shining softly in the light of the candelabras scattered about their room. "For me, Maman?"

Em smiled and nodded. "I figured you could use some toys, and this is even a toy you can use to protect yourself, dearest Alizee."

Alizee frowned in thought. "I'ma name you...Monsieur Chevalier!" Em smiled and nodded.

"A fine name for a fine guardian. C'mon then...into bed."

/-/-/-/-/

The morning routine was the same as ever. Get up, bathe, wake Alizee, bathe her, get the both of them dressed and ready for the day, then downstairs for breakfast. Em decided against cosmetics today, and sighed as Alizee took off down the hall, tinkling as she ran, the bells of her Pierrot Outfit bouncing with the same mirth as Alizee herself. Em smiled, cringing as normal when Alizee slid down the banister.

She wandered down the stairs slowly, keeping her wings furled in close and gritting her teeth at the chill of the silver stairs on her bare feet as she lifted the front of her Witch Scathatch Dress so she wouldn't step on it. Candi stood as always with the coffee mug for Em as she got out, and Alizee had already begun eating, as was normal.

What was abnormal was the darker red on the carpet that spoke of the events of the day before. Em winced, a stabbing pain making itself known in her chest. '_I _killed..._I...I ended the lives of two people yesterday. They didn't come back. They didn't revive. Even if it was for the sake of my family. I...I can't go back to who I was after this._'

Alizee looked up at Em and frowned. "Maman...you did it out of love. It's okays. Alizee promises. We all still loves Maman."

Candi out a hand on her friends shoulder. "She's right. You...snapped yesterday. At the prospect of having your family hurt...at having Alizee hurt, the girl you took as your own child, Emmie...anyone would snap. Like I'm about to thanks to this...damn..._armor!_"

Em arched an eyebrow at Candi as she smoothed the fur of her new Dark Knight Armor out of her face and pulled on the straps to try to adjust the breastplate. "You know Ankou bought that for you to wear because he loves you, yes? He wanted to make sure nothing would happen. This is his way of protecting you when he can't be there to stop the hits from coming."

Candi sighed. "And with what happened yesterday...I figured that I should start being a bit more paranoid and taking my armor off just about as much as he does."

"Thinking of, when _does_ that boy take off his armor?" Em smirked impishly and sucked her teeth as Candi's face flushed.

Em giggled and sat down by Alizee. "So, Sweetie...we need to teach you how to use those control bars, yes?"

Alizee perked up and practically choked on the mouthful of eggs she had in excitement. "Weely, Muhnmun?" She swallowed hard and grinned as Em. "Where do we go to do that?"

/-/-/-/-/

Candi and Em made sure their hair was secured properly, and Em checked Alizee's. "Now you know why I insisted you wear something easy to travel in today, Lee?" She nodded.

Candi and Em summoned their clouds and hopped on, Em pulling Alizee on with her and resting her hands on the girls shoulders protectively. "Move like Momma, alright?"

They took off and Alizee mimicked Emerinne's movements well, taking the cues of when to bend her knees and when to crouch from the pressure of Emerinne's hands on her shoulders. They landed at the nearby moon gate and paused.

Emerinne spoke clearly from atop Nwaj. "Northern Emain Macha!" The moon gate responded, opening the warp portal to Emain's northern pasture. They sped thru, and arrived on the other side unharmed. Em looked at the other two and nodded. "Ready?"

They sped off low to the ground, darting through in between gaps in the fences and buildings, along streets and down alleyways, Emain's layout seeming much more complex and grandiose since the implementation of the VR aspect. After about a half hour, they found the puppet shop and stopped, de-summoning pets and greeting Huw.

"Huw, you remember that favor you owe me?" Em smiled softly and looked down at Alizee. "I'm calling it due. Teach her."

Huw looked at her oddly. "You're skipping part of the quest line. Is that acceptable to you?"

Em nodded. "It is. Teach her."

Several hours passed, and Alizee learned all of the basic skills. She got good at simply flicking the chains that attached Monsieur Chevalier to her control bars, and summoning the full Colossus Marionette as opposed to her mini. She had rebirthed to puppeteer the evening before, so training was going quickly on the spiders around Emain. Alizee had become relatively proficient with her puppeteering, having reached Advanced Puppeteer in a relatively short amount of time.

/-/-/-/-/

Em sat at the café with Candi and Alizee, both of whom we're eating cheesecake while Em sipped her coffee and stared at the Reuben on rye she instructed Gordon in making. It tasted superb, and yet she still preferred them cool as opposed to hot.

"So, Maman, Auntie Candi, what's we gonna do next?"

Candi shrugged. "Emmie seems to have some kind of plan in mind. What's next, Em?"

Em grinned. "I do believe the next boat boards in...six hours. We have some time to kill before we run to Port Cobh."

"Port Cobh? The boat? What are we doing with those?"

Em smiled at the very confused Candi. "Going to Iria the fun, less make-you-want-to-hurl way."

Alizee perked up. "What's we gonna do in Iria?"

Em grinned. "It's a surprise."

/-/-/-/-/

They arrived in time and made the boat, finding enjoyment in the various elephants, alpaca and horses on the docks before their ship boarded. It was a small little skiff, but it moved quickly across the waters separating Uladh and Iria. The journey was monotonous, but took only two days to complete. When they disembarked, Alizee and Candi stared in awe at the pristine white beaches of Quilla. Em grinned and pulled the cowl of her ninja outfit over her head to conceal her face and scalp from the sun.

They made their way into the base camp and picked up supplies and rations for a semi-lengthy journey and made some needed repairs before heading out of the camp a ways, where Em summoned her food truck.

She looked back and smiled at the others from the drivers seat. "Get in." They complied and she took off, maneuvering expertly around peaks and within valleys. The plains and grasses of Rano passed quickly underneath them, and the expanse of the Muyu Desert droned on for many hours. Candi and Alizee entertained themselves by counting the various breeds they passed, and Em giggled at their mirth as she drove to their mystery destination.

Muyu did not last forever, and eventually made way to the dense, lush Karu Forest. Em brought up her minimap and began to navigate towards a specific point. It didn't take her long to find what she was looking for as she dodged the trees in their path, and they landed after an hours travel.

Alizee looked around and frowned. "Is we lost, Maman?"

Candi gasped as she noticed as she surveyed their surroundings. "We aren't lost, Ali..."

Em grinned and gestured to the ornate sandstone entryway carved with tribal designs and various symbols she could only guess we're writing. "We're at the Karu Forest Ruins."

/-/-/-/-/

Translations! (into common vernacular)

Te laves. C'est chaud. - Go bathe. It's hot.

"Maman, comment est-ce que tu es si belle?" - How are you so pretty?

Maman - mommy

Jaluk - (this is actually a Drow word, the rest have been/are in French unless otherwise noted) male

Monsieur Chevalier - Mr. Knight

/-/-/-/-/

Let me just clarify...for those at don't know, Drow are the commonly/stereotypically lawful evil subterranean "dark elves" of the dungeons and dragons universe. They are a matriarchal society, and look upon males unfavorably, to say the least. I've played a Drow many times in the past in old campaigns, and, like a good little player, I took on the personality of my character when I was playing. When I had a character get promoted to a Matron mother(the rulers of families/cities in their society) I _played the part. _Yes, when I get into a dominant mood and especially when I need to be cruel, that's what I draw on.

There you have it, though. PM me with any further questions.

~Emerinne


	4. There's No Place Like Home

Chapter Four

The room smelled of the dust of ages long past, and the eerie silence was occasionally shattered by a falling pebble. Their footfalls fell like thunder, despite all good sense in footwear and tenderness of step. Candi and Alizee were on edge, their eyes wide in alarm as they looked about. Em's features were unreadable, her eyes wide and predatory. She rubbed her nose and cursed inwardly, the smell of the incense she burned with the offering she gave to the statue still cloying to her nose and depriving her of the ability to smell any changes in the stale air.

They were silent, using the "party chat" function that lay in their minds similarly to guild chat. To speak aloud could give them away, and none of them were willing to take that risk.

"_Emmie."_

_"What?_

_"You're sure this was wise?"_

They left the first room, making their way into a seemingly endless hallway, a stone pathway lined by black pitfalls that stood between the walls and the pathway and turned the sides of the path into sheer cliff faces. Everything echoed eerily in the hall, and Candi could swear that even their breathing echoed.

The seconds passed like hours. The minutes felt like millennia. Each moment in their terse tenseness wore on their nerves. They passed through the hallway that way for upwards of ten minutes before they reached its end and entered the next room. All three stepped warily into the clear crystal floored room, feeling at least some relief that the floor was solid enough to support their weight and, in all likelihood, battle.

They looked around and frowned. '_A switch room?'_ Em wasn't fond of the idea.

"_Everyone pick a switch and get ready to cheese it."_

They each stood next to a switch and grimaced as they laid their hands on the glowing top stone on the pillars. Much to their surprise, the stones barring their path crumbled and allowed them to pass without summoning monsters. They looked at one another in relief before running towards the next room.

_One._

They skidded around a corner, running as silently as they could without losing speed. Em and Candi shifted to the balls of their feet and readied their shuriken. Alizee held her control bars and chains in one hand, Monsieur Chevalier in his sling on her back as she ran. Em turned a sharp corner a bit too quickly and nearly skidded off the edge, but she managed to recover in time.

_Two. _

"Take up positions at the switches that we were at relative to the locked door in the past room and this locked door," Emerinne dictated softly as they approached the next room, which she saw to be another switch room.

_Three. _

They took up their positions and laid their palms on the switches, the door crumbling open yet again. They skipped over the debris and started running down the next hall. "Same strategy as last room should the next be a switch room."

_One. _

They found no turn offs, nor bends in the path. The hall was long, but as they ran, they noticed the next room. Em pulled the shadows to her and darted quickly down the hall into the room. She looked around and frowned. '_A chest room...'_

"_Get ready to fight. There's a chest."_

Candi requipped into her guns and crouched, readying herself for a shooting rush. Alizee took her mini from her back and flung it forward into the room, snapping the chains of her control bars like whips to connect to the mini and summon her colossus. She drew her brows together in focus as she readied herself for the assault.

Em crouched and requipped into her lockpick set and got to work on the lock, cracking it easily. There were loud noises that resounded around her in the room as the door slammed shut and their enemies teleported into the room with a loud bang and smoke.

The soft, gurgling growl set Em's nerves on edge as she requipped into her shuriken and began to twirl her kunai on her index finger in preparation for a kunai storm. She turned and came face to face with severely yellowed, plaque encrusted fangs and glowing red eyes peering through a mask.

The masked goblin screeched and began its attack, and Em launched her skill.

/-/-/-/-/

Ankou rammed the tip of his lance into the werewolf's face and knocked it back several feet, where ackilles finished it off with a flame burst. Kenny finished off another with a well placed uppercut, and the door to the room opened. Mason cast a party heal, and the group felt the regenerative and restorative effects of the spell slowly settle in.

Xig rolled his shoulders and sighed. "Why on earth did we decide to just run is second job while we were out? Math Advanced for Three to get that damn skull with a NX pass to be safe in the group took ages and left us sore and run down. So we go drop off the skull, accept payment, and _then_ run to do Alby Intermediate hard mode to get a circlet for this person _before resting_ for what reason again?"

Kyle snorted. " 'We were already out and doing things,' _right Kenny?"_

Kenny sighed. "Not the best vote on my part, I'll admit that. Ankou?"

Ankou shrugged noncommittally, his voice echoing out from his helm. "I'm ok to keep going, I suppose. Want to get home sooner, rather than later. Candi is probably worried sick."

Dan nodded and frowned. "What about Em? She worries about everyone and everything. Remember how she didn't eat from the worry the last time we went out on an extended assault?"

Mason sighed and nodded. "Alizee was so excited to see us when we got back though. Wonder what she's up to."

Kenny nodded. "And how the re-application interview went, too."

/-/-/-/-/

They stalked through the dark through fields and over bridges, their black, deeply hooded cloaks pulled in close around them as they came into the torchlight near the inn, cringing as the sudden light blinded them. They quickly darted inside and went into the common room of the inn and walked towards the far back corner where light seemed to avoid.

"Should we take our hoods down?"

One pulled back his hood, revealing a pale, gaunt face with sunken, yellow eyes as he looked at his companion. "I'd say it's probably ok, Thane."

Thane pulled back his hood to reveal his full, dark face covered in stubble, silvery-blue beady eyes darting around the room in suspicion. "Do you think they know we're here, Desther?"

A candle lit at the far table hidden in the shadows, revealing a dashing, ebon skinned individual wearing leather armor blacker than night. With a snap of the fingers, other individuals appeared in the dark around the two men, some moving in closer to lay kunais against their throats.

It was the man at the table that broke the tense silence, his deep voice rasping out a question. "Why are you here?"

Desther and Thane paled, their eyes going wide as they began to sweat, Thane speaking in a thready voice. "We, ah...were told, ah...that we could find the Skullclub guild here. We, ah...want to join."

The cluster of shadowy men laughed derisively, and the man at the table spoke again. "Who sent you?"

Thane swallowed hard. "I'm not allowed to say. They said they...they'd gut me if I told. I just want to join a guild that can help me get back at that _Emerinne_ bitch and the rest of her guild. She...she killed two of my best friends."

The man raised an eyebrow. "Are you willing to do whatever it takes? This is a mercenary guild, after all. You'll be asked to kill for a living. And you aren't allowed to turn down the jobs I send you on. You take longer than a week, there had best be a good reason. Is that understood?"

Desther and Thane nodded quickly. He sighed and pulled down his menu, sending them the invitations, which they quickly applied with. The notifications appeared before him and he accepted them both. He turned to look at them and smirked, whispering something next to the one next to him marked as his officer.

His officer left and came back with a white-hot branding iron, speaking in a very deep, smooth voice. "You are only allowed to leave this guild through death. Punishment for betraying is death. Punishment for unsatisfactory performance is death."

The leader looked at his new minions and smiled. "This won't hurt a bit. Now...tell me about this other guild."

The sear of the branding iron on their backs brought them to tears and agony. As they screamed the tale of their fallen comrades, their new guild mates laughed all around them.

Fergus woke due to the eerie, howling, _keening_ wail and sighed, wiping the cold sweat from his forehead. These wails had become all too common since his favorite branding iron had gone missing.

/-/-/-/-/

Dan gave the cobweb covered chest a swift boot in the lock as he finished placing the last crystal in the barrel of his cylinder for vaporization. He was immediately thankful at his choice of flame burst to start the room, as a wisp hummed about him, preparing to fire off a lightning bolt. While they didn't do too much to damage him, the stun time was maddening. They cleared the room quickly, taking almost no damage in the process.

Mason used another party heal, and the group trudged off towards the next room.

/-/-/-/-/

Alizee, Candi and Emerinne slunk down the stairway to the next floor of the ruins. While they were tired from the exertion, the adrenaline rush pushed them onwards to the next floor. When they emerged from the stairwell, it immediately became clear that this floor as not as well maintained. The sconces were scarcely lit and cobwebs and grit covered nigh on to every surface they could. The dust softened their footfalls, but enough was disturbed to aggravate eyes and sinuses.

There was no hall between the entryway to the second floor and it's first room. Em frowned and looked around the room. "How lovely...a mimic pit."

Alizee looked at her and sighed. "How does we tell?"

Candi crouched and pointed at the corner chests. "It's one of those four, sweetie. The chest is never in the middle of the room."

Alizee pouted. "But how does we tell?"

Em took a close look at one of the mimics in the center of the room. "I...don't rightly know. Before the DIVE gear, we just right clicked to see if our cursor changed. Now...now I suppose we have no choice but to take a crack at all of them. "

Alizee crouched to look at the mimic Em had been examining and gasped. "Wait a minute..."

Candi perked up. "Whist is it, Ali?"

Alizee grinned, giggled and began examining the corner chests. She pointed at one, and smiled. "Alizee finded it."

Em arched an eyebrow and opened it, finding the key. "How did you know?"

Alizee puffed her chest out with pride. "That keyhole was really a hole. Thems mimics ain't gots a real hole there, just an innnn...indeen...indie...a sinked-in spot."

Em smiled. "An indent?"

Alizee giggled and skipped over to Em, hugging her waist. "Yea, dat ting."

Em and Alizee made their way into the next room and readied themselves as they noticed the chest. Candi followed a bit further behind, staring at her minimap. "Hey, guys, I just notice tha-OW!"

Em looked over hastily as Candi tripped over the chest. Her foot collided with the lock, and the chest popped open. Em gritted her teeth and looked around the room as the monsters summoned.

They were noticed rather quickly, and unfortunately, by their latest opponents. Their stones clattered with each slow step as they approached the party, and Em growled as she requipped into her rapier.

"I hate zombies."

/-/-/-/-/

The air burned, the act of simply _being_ burned. They had removed their shirts to prevent the now ruined garments from clinging to their charred flesh and ripping open the areas where the bleeding had mostly stopped and begun to scab over. Their journey down the stairs was long and painful, but so was simply standing.

Desther and Thane did as they were told and followed Markus, the officer, and touched nothing. Their time descending the stairs had gone on for perhaps ten minutes before the stone stairwell slick with a strange slime and mosses and lichens opened and revealed the rest of the guild hall, namely, the vast expanse that was their armory. Armory of every variety, training dummies, sparring fields, and, most importantly, _weapons. _The varieties seemed endless; enchanted, unenchanted, upgraded, without upgrades, purchased, smith end...the list went on.

What shocked the two the most were the too-small atlatls and the too-large bows and the associated ammunition matched in size to the weapons themselves. Markus caught them staring and smirked. "Ah, I see you've noticed our pride. This, my friends, is the work of our ingenious weapons smith. One step closer to balancing the races, no?"

Desther's jaw dropped. "You mean-"

"Ranged weapons for giants and thrown weapons for humans and elves."

/-/-/-/-/

"_Shit!"_

Em darted forward, the heavy mightily plates of her armor hindering her somewhat, but her Fleet Feet compensated for that somewhat. She skidded in front of Alizee and Candi moments before impact as the stone bison drove its horn into her, goring her stomach and flinging her into the wall as the two behind her dove out of the way. Alizee's eyes widened and she moved on instinct, not thinking about actions or consequences, only _survival. _ Candi poured mana into Em's stomach despite her protests and attempts to stand, which became more solid and stable as Candi struggled to close her wound.

Em gasped and made squeaks of protest and struggled to get back to the fight, though Candi shoved her back and continued working on her injury. "Alizee..."

She watched as her child flicked the chains of her control bar at the bison, wrapping them around its horns and neck. With deft movements, she propelled herself onto the beasts back and pulled, tightening the chains. Stone horns began to crack under the pressure and the bison bellowed in pain or rage-it didn't matter. Alizee continued to pull and tighten the chains, wrapping them around her wrists to prevent slack as the horns crumbled. The chains shifted and interrupted the magic flow through the beast, severing both its head and its life as the door crumbled open.

Em stared in awe as Alizee slowly unwrapped the chains from her forearms. Candi prodded her shoulder. "You're done."

Em stood, shakily at first, but she kept her footing and staggered forward to Alizee and collapsed to her knees, pulling the child into a tight hug. "Lee..._never_ scare me like that again!"

Alizee put a hand in Em's cheek. "Maman...I oughtta say dat to you."

/-/-/-/-/

There was an underlying smell in the vast training room as the Skullclub cleric tutted over the branding marks on the backs of the men before her. She channeled small amounts of mana into the worst areas, ensuring that the scarring would stick. She hardly noticed the smell that wrinkled the noses of the two new members now, she had been exposed to it for so long without stop. She clutched at the ring she wore on a chain about her neck as she touched up the worst of the burns, the ring too large now for her spindly, bone-like fingers.

Desther looked up at her, her lifeless black hair falling limply around her, framing her deathly pale face and hiding most of her sunken-in violet eyes. "Can't you smell that?" Her blood red lips quirked into a tiny smile.

Her voice was tiny and thin, like the silk of a spiders web blown in Horne wind as she spoke. "You really are new, huh?"

Markus walked over and backhanded her, the bruising immediately evident on her high cheekbones as her face hit the straw mattress next to Thane's knee as his and Desther's eyes went wide. "_Were you told that you could speak!?"_ Spittle flew from Markus' lips as the words ripped themselves venomously from his mouth.

The woman apologized profusely in words so small they were barely audible as she recoiled into the bed. Markus sneered. "Back to your cage, _bitch. _I'm going to go inform your husband of this, and maybe when I ask him to spare you, for your sake, he'll listen."

The woman slunk to her feet as Markus stalked off, his heavy plate boots clattering on the slick stone floor. She pulled the too-large dress in close around her bony frame and slunk off into the darkness of the stairwell from whence she had come earlier.

Desther and Thane sniffed at the air in disgust. Though they were thankful that the smell covered the abundance of sweat and foul beer, they wished it were more pleasant than the smell it covered.

The hammer rang against the forge as the smithy forged yet another new blade. Their shrouded guild leader stormed through the armory with a blade in one hand and the branding iron in the other towards the stairwell the only female in the guild had just descended, a murderous smile gracing his features as his eyes shone with unbridled fury.

/-/-/-/-/

They all opened their chests and sighed. Two circlets, both meeting the requirements. They stashed the better of the two and took the lesser to give to the client. Xig curled his upper lip in disdain as he held a slip of paper between his thumb and forefinger for the group to examine. "What do we want to do with this?"

Dan sneered at the advanced pass. "Burn it with fire."

Kyle lazily tossed a half powered firebolt at it, making Xig jump and squeak in surprise as he released the now burning paper. "Done. Can we go now?"

Xig glared at Kyle as they all laid a hand on the goddess statue to request teleport.

/-/-/-/-/

Alizee screamed in rage as she sent her colossus charging at the nearly-dead keeper of the ruins, finishing him off and crumbling the door to the chest room. Em smiled, and stretched, wincing as her back popped and crackled in several places as she walked towards the chest room. Alizee unsummoned her colossus and Candi requipped out of her guns. Em gave her chest a swift boot and pulled out the gold and the potions and grinned, picking up a book with worn, tattered pages. She turned and tossed the book at Candi. "Remember running for these for 'quick cash'?"

Candi caught the book and flipped through the pages and tossed it back. "Yessu, I do." She laughed and tried to wipe some of the grime from her forehead.

They grinned and requested exit from the dungeon.

/-/-/-/-/

"Thank you for your patronage."

Ankou carried the sack of gold out of the Dunbarton bank and sighed. "At least that's done. Now we can head home."

Kenny nodded and sighed, stretching his aching limbs before summoning his truck. "Let's go home then."

They all boarded and Ankou began to separate out their individual portions as they passed through the moon gate.

/-/-/-/-/

Candi, Em and Alizee trudged into the base camp at Quilla and sighed as they plopped down on a bench. Em rubbed the back of her neck and sighed. "Next boat is in three days."

Candi sighed. "Do we want to warp it?"

A voice spoke up from across the camp. "I wouldn't, Candi. I made that mistake getting to Iria."

Em arched her eyebrow at the silvery-blue haired giant across the way waiting for Nicca to finish repairing the blade of her hellfire cylinder. "And how exactly do you know us?"

The giant took her cylinder from Nicca and tossed him a small pouch with payment before turning and grinning. "Hey Em."

Em's jaw dropped. "_Aristis?_"

She waved and came and picked up Em and hugged her. Em hugged back limply in stunned silence, and watched as Ari put her down and repeated the process with Candi and Alizee. "Ari..."

She looked at Em and blinked. "Yea?"

Em glared. "Where in the _Nine Hells have you been!?"_

Ari grinned sheepishly. "Well, Em, I kinda...took some time to myself in order to get used to my body. It's easier for elves and humans, and I bet it's even easier for people playing their gender."

Em looked away, a bit embarrassed. "I suppose you have a point. But dammit, we were worried. Or at least I was. Where do you get off on not checking in through g-chat every now and again?"

Ari shrugged. "It's hard to keep track of time when you're learning your strengths and weaknesses, hell, your whole body, in the Physis snowfields. It's...it's stunning there. Freezing, but stunning."

Em grinned. "It's good to have you back at least. We missed you."

Ari grinned in return. "It's good to be back. There's no place like home."


	5. The Beauty of the Unhidden Heart

Chapter Five

Aristis hummed softly and gently pushed the door to Emerinne's room open, smiling in thanks that the oil he had applied to the door a few days ago had finally set to work, the door opening without its normal creak. Ari walked in and sighed before looking around. '_Only Lizzy is in bed, so that means...'_

Ari spotted the small female, quill still in hand, inkwell open, her head resting on her arm in the midst of a small mountain of paperwork. He chuckled lightly at the tiny snores that came from Em as her breath ruffled the parchments around her as she slept. Ari took off the coat of his snowboarding outfit and draped it over the smaller woman's shoulders, took the quill from her hand and put it in the small jar Em had for such things, and replaced the stopper in the inkwell. Ari smiled and smoothed Em's recently dyed silvery-gold locks before turning around and looking at Alizee. Ari picked up the child, duvet and all, carried her down the hall to his room, and put Alizee back down in his own bed.

Ari slipped out of his room and quietly closed the door, silently hoping Alizee stayed asleep a bit longer before returning to Em's room. He picked up his coat and sat it gently on the floor, careful of the metal zipper hitting the wooden floor too loudly. Em shifted and gave a tiny whimper at the sudden chill, and Ari deftly scooped her up and wondered at her weight. '_She's solid, strong, and yet so light.' _Em curled into Ari and murmured.

Ari then remembered her relative size and strength and rolled her eyes. _'Of course she's light.' _

Ari quickly and silently walked across the room from Em's desk to her bed and gently deposited her into the ruffled golden mess of sheets and frowned. _'Damn. Should've reclaimed the covers from Lizzy. Where does Em keep-'_ Ari spotted a cracked open concealed door and opened it a bit wider and sighed, pulling out a vivid emerald green cover riddled with silver embroidery. He unfolded it some and gently covered Em, smoothing her hair yet again.

As Ari began to pull his hand away to leave the room, Em's hand darted up and caught his wrist. The grip was a fragile one, despite the obvious effort in it, and one Ari could easily break. He followed the densely freckled alabaster arm to the face near its shoulder. Wide, thickly lashed silver eyes stared up pleadingly.

"Don't leave?"

Ari frowned at how thin and fragile her soprano voice sounded as she said the words in a voice just louder than a whisper. There was a thready, scared tone to Em's voice that pulled at Ari's heart. He smoothed Em's hair, pulled back a corner of the verdigris cover and slipped his boots off before slipping into Em's bed, replacing the cover and pulling the comparatively tiny woman close to her. "Yeah...I'll stay. Don't worry."

Em snuggled in closer and relished the foreign warmth, taking a hold of the tank top that hid underneath the jacket that Ari normally wore that, mysteriously, was missing for once. Ari's soft scent filled her nose and she blushed, surreptitiously taking in Ari's scent to try to place the soft yet sharp and soothing scent. '_Honey and evergreen?'_

She felt her eyes drift closed for a moment and hadn't the energy nor the will to fight the calming effect that the large, warm hand stroking her hair produced as a small purr escaped her. Her lips curled into a pout when Ari stopped. The surprise visitor to her bed arched an eyebrow. "You like that, I take it?"

Em pouted further and shook her head, looking mournfully at Ari with a subtle hint of playfulness that Ari was ever so used to spotting when Em was jesting. He grinned and resumed petting anyway, which elicited more purrs and a tiny female snuggling in close and nuzzling her elegantly arched high cheekbone into his cleavage. The heat emanating from his cheeks spoke to him of the intense blush that had grown there. "You should...catch some sleep in a bed before Lizzy wakes up. Yeah."

Em mumbled, her cheek compressed in Ari's cleavage still. "She won't wake unless she's woken or gets stupid hungry. Whutimezzit?"

Ari glanced across the room as the ornate baroque brass clock mounted on the wall and petted Em again. "About nine thirty."

Em snuggled in and sighed contentedly. "We have about two and a half hours then."

The blush deepened. "We?"

Em's eyes snapped open and she pouted, looking hurt. There was no underlying playfulness or mirth; this pain was genuine. "You mean you want to leave?"

Ari sighed and pulled her close. "No. But you don't often let people in your room. I figured that you'd eventually kick me out because you wanted your space to yourself again."

Em frowned and turned over in Ari's arms, mumbling something. Ari furrowed his brows in confusion. "What was that, Em?"

She growled softly and sighed before looking over her shoulder with a soft glare. "You're different, alright?"

Ari stared in stunned silence for a moment before his reply spilled from his lips. "But I thought that you and-"

Em gave a strange response that began with what sounded like a cross between a cough and a hurt laugh. "Everyone did. If you thought that, why have you been so sweet these past months? The only ones that have been as sweet have been those that wanted something from me...whether it be sway in the guild, something from the guild or just bragging rights that they have me _wrapped around their little finger_. And I've always suspected that you were up to something, but you always seemed so much more genuine."

Ari pushed up and supported himself on her elbow and leaned over to look Em in the face. "I figured you needed a friend. Someone to have your back other than Candi and Lizzy. When you're busy being Maes Hughes, who is pushing _you _up the ranks and supporting _you_ from behind?"

Em sighed and rolled back over to face Ari and stared into his vivid orange-gold eyes like candle flames. They stayed like that for several minutes, Ari relaxing back onto the bed and Em moving to use his arm as a pillow. Laying on Ari's arm like that, she spoke softly and calmly. "Let's play a game. The game is simple. I ask you a question, and you give a single word to answer. One word only."

Ari hesitated, but nodded in affirmation. "Ask away."

Em paused in thought, placing a finger on her lips. "Why have you been supporting me?"

"Friendship." There was no hesitation.

Em nodded. "What are your goals in supporting me?"

Ari sat in silence and Em watched as he thought, slowly chewing his lip in the process. Em reached up and placed a finger on his lip and rolled it down, pulling his lip away from his teeth. "Your HP actually goes down if you do that enough, you know."

Ari smiled softly at her, as though the small action had brought the word to his mind. "You."

Em blinked. "What about me?"

"Whatever."

"Whatever about me?"

"Everything." Ari nodded.

"Despite my flaws? You were informed about the reapplication interview."

"Always."

Em stared. "Why?"

"Because."

Em frowned. "That's very, _very_ non-helpful Ari."

"It's hard to respond to such a vacuous question with a vague yet specific answer."

Em gently poked at Ari's cheek. "More than one word. You lose."

Ari grinned. "I guess I can be ok with that."

Em stretched lazily. "I guess I should consider myself pretty damn lucky."

"Oh?"

Em grinned. "_Anyone_ that has your loyalty and support is pretty damn lucky, I'd say. I might even go so far as to say 'blessed'."

Ari blushed. "What makes you say that?"

Em blinked. "Let's start with you're kind, loyal, and protective in more than just combat situations. Why else would you have tried to put me in bed for a few hours of real sleep without Lee and her fish-flopping and kicking?"

Ari arched an eyebrow. "She moves that much?"

Em nodded. "Next let's move to that whole 'wrestling an ancient bear' thing when it hit me for like...7 damage?"

Ari blushed. "I thought it was worse than it was."

Em giggled. "You didn't wait long enough to see if I was ok before going and taking it on."

Ari sighed. "Yeah, well-"

Em cut him off with a kiss, hesitant and light. Ari's eyes went wide in shock, but he slowly melted into the kiss and smiled, his eyes closing in contentment. Em pulled away and gently traced the intricate tattoo around Ari's eye with a fingertip. "Thank you."

Ari paused. "For what?"

Em smiled. "What was it you had said earlier? Mm, I remember; 'Everything'."

Ari smiled and leaned in to kiss her again, but Em put a finger on his lips to hold him, perking up with wide eyes. "_Shit."_

That's when Ari heard the sound of small feet slapping cold stones as they ran, and the scuffling scrape of a cover being dragged along after. The door slammed open and there was Alizee, looking around in awe. "Maman! Comment ai-je déménagé dans le chambre d'Ari?"

"Il y t'a pris."

Alizee glared at the extra lump and threw down the cover that she brought back and ran headlong at the bed, jumping at the last moment to launch herself at the bed and landing squarely between the two women, turning to glare at Ari. "How comes, _huh_?"

Ari frowned. "Your Maman needed some decent sleep that wasn't in her chair on her paperwork and I figured that it would be easiest to keep both of you mostly undisturbed if you both were in separate beds. Now, turn and lay down, your hair is going up Em's nose."

Alizee quirked her eyebrow and laid down, and as if on cue, Em sneezed, the sneeze dying into her standard, high-pitched squeak. Both Ari and Alizee giggled, causing Em to glare and mumble. "Not funny."

Ari smoothed Em's hair again, and her pout melted away. Alizee looked at the exchange with wide eyes and giggled. "Does this mean I has _two_ mamas now?" Em and Ari stopped, eyes going wide. While Em floundered for an answer, Ari stepped in with a small smile and a tentative response.

"It just might."

/-/-/-/-/

Em sipped her coffee in her new perch and surveyed the activities of the guild hall in comfort and security, wiggling her toes in the summer sun pouring through the stained glass windows of the main hall.

Much to Em's chagrin, the wiggling of her toes attracted Ari's attention, and Ari began to play with her toes and tickle her foot, causing her to wriggle and squeak in protest, bursting out with sporadic fits of giggles. Ari took her coffee and sat it on the table, pulled Em from his shoulders and began to tickle her torso, finding much more laughter and wriggling in the process. Alizee perked up from across the table, slipped down underneath the table and crawled across to the other side and joined in. Em began to go red in the face and wheeze with the laughter.

Em began to protest between giggle fits and wheezes. "You...aren't...playing..._fair!" _

The two stopped, and Ari placed a light kiss on Em's forehead. "I guess not."

He reached down and scooped Alizee off the floor and pulled her up onto the bench and pulled her in close, smiling happily. '_My family...'_

The doors to the main hall opened noisily and closed with a loud bang. It wasn't unusual; people came and went all the time now that they had mostly adjusted to life. Stronger teams for that which people would normally take smaller groups for, avoiding certain places where even a full party would be challenged, and always taking every available precaution were simple enough steps to take, and Em was happy that life had, in essence, fallen into a state of normalcy. Everyone was.

Dan wandered down the hall, his Nuadha boots clicking softly on the floor when he left the carpet. "Steve. Got that thing you asked me to pick up."

Ari looked up and glanced at the small, paper-and-twine wrapped package in ackilles' outstretched hand then at his friend. "Thanks, man."

Dan arched an eyebrow at Ari and cleared his throat. "Bit distracted? Your voice dropped."

Ari blinked and shrugged, his voice returning to 'normal'. "Yea, I guess."

Em peered out from over Ari's chest and waved. "Hey, Dan the Man. How's it hanging?"

Dan shrugged. "Not too badly. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go get some food."

Em shrugged. "Laters, then."

Ari pulled the twine on the packaging and smiled as he examined his order. Crafted by one friend and etched by another, the small mythril ring with its inset gems shimmered in the light that entered the box. Em arched an eyebrow at the light playing on Ari's features as the light that went into the box shattered and danced like fire where it landed. "Sweetie?"

He looked over at her, still smiling. The guild hall went eerily quiet, but before Em could look about in wonder, her dearest friend had left the bench and now kneeled before her, holding an ornate ring, inset with a garnet and a fire opal and etched with detailed runes and spells that Em couldn't quite make out. She looked at Ari questioningly as he beamed at her, radiating confidence and hesitation all at once.

"Emerinne, my dear friend...I want to reconcile the violence in your heart, for one should never feel that they fight alone against the world. I want to recognise that your beauty isn't just a mask, because you are as beautiful inside as you are outside. I want to exorcise the demons from your past, for I want you to be free to look to the future. I want to satisfy the undisclosed desires in your heart, because you hold my own. Would you do me the honour of being my wife?"

Em stared in shock at her closest friend, the person she had shared her secrets, her fears, her joys, her sorrows and her heart with, the person she had slept beside for the past three months since that initial morning. Her jaw that had dropped in the initial shock snapped up and tightened, her lower lip beginning to quivver. Slowly, hesitantly, she nodded, the tears welling up in the corners of her eyes as Ari slipped the ring onto her left ring finger as the guild cheered around them. Her words came out as a whisper strangled by the tears that threatened to spill onto her cheeks. "Yes. I will."

Ari pulled her into a hug and kissed her. "I had the ring etched with protection spells and a spell to boost your mana somewhat. If I'm not around, it can help protect you and help you better protect yourself. I don't want something to happen to you because I'm not there."

Em kissed him back and smiled. "What could possibly happen?"

/-/-/-/-/

"No, but seriously...I'm not us sure that the sleeves are going to work. I mean, yes, I suppose the one will, but look! I'm a DK. I've got this damn thing to contend with." Em jerkily pointed at the token of the armor on her wrist. Bouncingfrog nodded.

"So we clasp the one and leave the other sleeve free to flutter."

Em arched an eyebrow. "In _Physis_?"

Mason shrugged. "Why not? You know how to embroider. Throw some like you threw on your covers onto the dress."

Em stared at the white velvet and the sheer silver silk woven such that it was predominantly see-through. '_Maybe if I embroidered it like so...'_

_'__**...**__'_

Em's eyes went wide in shock as she felt the touch in her mind. '_I know...just give me this, I'm begging you.'_

The presence receded and Em sighed and began fishing about in the drawer of the sewing room for the silvery white embroidery thread and set to work enchanting it against the cold.

Mason finished meshing the clasp bracelet with the sheer silk on the left sleeve and fluffed the flounce on the right and looked up at Em. "What do you think? The metal is etched, and things are starting to come together nicely...is there anything missing?"

Em finished imbuing the thread and began to embroider the skirt, creating patterns like cracked ice and frost in white-on-white embroidery. Mason slowly and gently polished the mythril plates and chains. "Mason...can you go work on the other dress?"

Mason nodded and started working on the dress for Aristis, gently tugging on the tiers of the skirt made to look like Cichol's sleeves to even them out. Em had gone through earlier and embroidered the segments that were to be gold with delicate stitches and gold thread. The silver chains and plating stood out against the black fabric of the greater part of the dress and Mason gently polished the silver and mythril threads that formed the plating on the neckline that hung off the shoulder.

"How's it looking?"

Mason nodded to himself and assessed the dress, going over seams and embroidery bindings. "Looks good. I might reinforce the seam that attaches the hood."

Em nodded. "Would you, please?"

Mason nodded and began to stitch a reinforcement in, glancing over as her fingers and the silver thread danced in intricate patterns over the fabric of the skirt, turning it into a cracked and frosty sheet of ice. "Well that's ironic."

Em grinned. "I know."

/-/-/-/-/

Aristis glared at the silvery white beast that he had just felled and sighed. '_Wonderful. Now I just have to trek through Physis to get it to a tanner.'_

Ari accessed his menus and picked up the bear meat and the bear pelt, thankful that he didn't have to carry the whole beast back to Vales. He summoned his cloud and made his journey to Vales much faster than his journey from Vales.

Once in town, he made his way to taunes and grinned. "Hey Taunes. Got that hide for you."

Taunes looked up from his forge and stared at Ari impassively. "As I stated previously, tanning a hide like that will be 100,000 gold and take a week."

Ari nodded and handed over the pelt and the gold. "I'll wait."

/-/-/-/-/

Em huffed and shoved the smaller dress form across the way to rest next to its larger counterpart and glanced at the two dresses side by side and pouted in thought, sizing up the two dresses and comparing them individually and together.

Ari's design was simple enough at first glance, but Em knew that she had been smart, making the dress something that could easily conceal pants or leggings and that allowed free movement should the need arise. But there was also an elegant complexity to it, merging the designs of Nuadha and Cichol's robes into a coherent whole. The hood had a streak of white in the middle where the golden wings from Nuadha's hood were embroidered, and the hood tapered into a mostly open back design to allow Ari's wings if he so chose. The wide, off the shoulder neckline was a direct link to Cichol's neckline and showed off the Nuadha-inspired collar that had been made. The bodice was fitted black and flared into the three tiered skirt just below the hip, inspired by the shoulder of Cichol's sleeves.

Em's looked far more complex and harder to move in, though Em figured that she would be fine. The blend of the Badhbh Catha goddesses was intricate, but Em enjoyed her design. The small plate that hugged her neck and spawned the sun ray-like offshoots, the longest of which merged with the thin strips of metal that hugged and surrounded her breasts, ensuring that the once-billowing velvet that gathered now to ruffle around just under her bust. The velvet separated to reveal her stomach much like Macha's dress, and remained gathered of its own will in front until it dove back at the hips to form the scooped back of the dress that left nothing to the imagination until the small of her back. The belt blended all three belts, as the sleeves spoke to all three goddesses. The skirt spoke of Neamhain, solid and angled to a point at her ankles with a longer, training back half joined by a sheer mesh of silk.

Both dresses were heavily embroidered, Ari's gold paneling and neckline as well as several other designs blatant, though Em's embroidery was more subtle. She had taken the icy silver of her dress and frosted it, shattering the ice in the process. The frosty, shattered ice crept up the whole length of her skirt, steadily melting and becoming floral vines once her waist had been reached. The vines crept up the top half of her dress until they could climb no more.

She stared in amazement at the result of a great deal of time with Mason and several others. The chill in the wind was creeping in quickly. Em sighed and walked across the room, closing the window to keep out the chill before leaving the room, deciding that there was not much more that she could do.

/-/-/-/-/

Ari slipped into Masons room per Frog's own request and closed the door as silently as possible, sighing in relief at going unnoticed by his fiancée. Mason nodded. "You wanted to see me?"

Ari pulled out the tanned pelt and held it up. "Perfectly tanned. Think it will work?"

Mason stood and looked it over, nodding. "I think so. Let's move. I think Em is out with Alizee and Candi looking at getting Alizee some puppeteering-reforged armor."

Mason grabbed a fistful of findings from his desk, and they hastily snuck down to the sewing room, closing and locking the door behind them. Mason showed Ari where to hold the pelt and sewed two round findings to the pelt before beginning to gouge and etch the places of attachment on the tooled and etched neck plate. Blowing metal slivers out of the new indent, Mason nodded. "Try attaching the cloak."

Ari pressed the finding onto the indent and arched an eyebrow as it clicked into place, slowly taking his hand away and admiring the white fur against the mythril plate before snapping the other finding into place. "Huh. That's interesting. Think she'll like it?"

Mason stepped back and sized the dress up, looking at how the large, bulky cloak billowed around the light, airy dress. He slowly approached the dress form and tossed the sides of the cloak back over the shoulders and stepped back to size it up again, nodding in approval. "I think she will, yes."

/-/-/-/-/

Em fingered the soft, silvery-white pelt and arched an eyebrow. "Frog, where the hell did this come from? It's...amazing seems and insufficient word. It just suits the whole dress."

Mason shrugged. "I'm not sure. Evidently someone had an idea for your dress that they thought you'd like."

Em shrugged and packed up the dress, cloak and all, before sighing. "Are we missing anything?"

He shook his head no, and Ari stuck his head in the room. "We good to go?"

Em smiled and nodded. "I believe so, dear. Lee packed and ready to go?"

Ari nodded and sighed as Alizee chimed in from the hall. "Boat time! Boaty-boat time!"

Em arched an eyebrow. "Has she been like that this _whole_ time?" Ari nodded weakly in response as Em watched Alizee clamber up the yellow and white snow suited giant to perch on his shoulder. Em arched an eyebrow and sighed, leading the way to the stairs.

They descended quickly and walked into the common room, noting that the rest of the group was waiting by the door, geared with warm clothes and cloaks. Ankou nodded. "You're sure that we're going to be able to make it through? It's almost the winter solstice. There's snow everywhere."

Em nodded. "The snow isn't too deep just yet. We'll make it."

They made their way quickly to the nearby moon gate and summoned the portal to Math Dungeon and made their way to Cobh in short order, boarding the ship just in time to leave. The journey went quickly and without problem. Two days after the start, they were on the beach, making their way to the mana tunnel. They donned their cloaks and warm clothes again, summoned the portal to Vales, and stepped through.

Em breathed in deeply and Ari stretched lazily, though the rest shuddered and pulled their cloaks in close about them, the temperature having suddenly gone from balmy summer to cool enough to maintain the soft snowfall that thundered around them in the silence that made even the softest of breathing sound like a roar.

Kiru growled lightly and shifted into a snowfield bear, the air shimmering around her as she changed, snorting as the cold stopped affecting her. Em thumbed her embroidery and sighed, mumbling a short phrase under her breath before pulling a soft gold from her chest and casting the charged mana over the cluster of chilled Famine members, smiling as the spell set to work warding them from the cold.

"Ready?"

They made their way into Vales and began to peruse the infrequently visited town, though Em and Ari made their way to the town hall. Ari pushed the door open and let Em walk through into the radiant warmth before walking in and letting the door close. Krug and Kirine perked up and Em waved softly. "Hey, Kirine. Your majesties." She curtsied, and Ari bowed before they both stood again.

Em twined her fingers with Ari's and looked to Kirine. "We're ready. Our group has what we wish to wear for the ceremony. What now?"

Kirine nodded, giving an awkward smile to the couple. "I will lead them with supplies to the Silva Forest. You two will make your own ways there on foot, separate from both us and one another." She nodded and offered them each swords, which they took. "Let these blades guide you. You will need them for the ceremony. I will see you there by nightfall."

Kirine ushered them out and Em sighed, hugging Ari closely. "I'll see you there tonight. Be safe."

He nodded and kissed her forehead. "You too."

Em grinned, sheathed the sword on her back and gave a mock salute before taking off the side of the hill, sliding down the snow drifts to the valley floor below. Ari cringed and walked through Vales, opting to take the slower but safer route down the hill.

He cringed as Kirine barked orders at his guild mates. '_This is going to be one hell of a day._'

/-/-/-/-/

He crept through the valleys and snow, his sword at the ready to defend against what may come. Nearly a year in the wilds of Physis honed him, taught him, prepared him. His beast was on edge, anticipating the ambushes that always came in the snowfields. The snowstorm caused by the winds that picked up loose snow and flung it stung his nose and dampened his senses, and his beast growled at the frailty of his body.

Ari paused, hearing a faint growl on the wind and turned in time to catch the warg with the blade of his sword. He lashed out with his foot, catching the thing in the stomach and sending it backwards onto the snow. His eyes never left his opponent and he snarled as the rest of the pack arrived. He roared with rage along with his beast and sprung across the snow.

/-/-/-/-/

Em crouched silently and examined the snow around her. Blood spattered across the once virgin snow and the bodies of wargs lay strewn about...pieces of them at least. If it hadn't been for the humanoid footprint, she would've believed the culprit to be an ice worm or a larger beast. But while the beast had been larger, it hadn't truly been a beast.

"_**Looks like someone had fun**_."

Em rolled her eyes and sighed inwardly.'_Depends on your definition of 'fun', Hades.'_

_"__**So what? Looks fun to **_**me.**"

Em grimaced. "Sure. Fun."

Her eyes widened and her ears perked up as the snow beneath her feet began to rumble. She took her guard but was caught unawares, the ice worm coming from beneath her and knocking her off her feet. She flew back several feet and scrambled to regain her footing. '_Shit, they're detritivores.' _It paused and turned to look at her. '_No. Omnivores. Fuck.'_

Em dove out of the way as it sped across the snow and dove where she had once been, obviously having intended to have dragged her down with it if it hadn't swallowed her whole. She grit her teeth and looked around frantically, trying to predict its next move. As it came up, it grazed her arm. She winced and lashed out with her blade, but to no avail. The sword merely slid across the thick scales of the worm, allowing it to circle for another attack.

Em growled, glaring as she darted forward, her sword at the ready. At the last moment, she jumped, using the worm's head to propel her further, landing her on higher ground. The worm circled and came at her again, and Em held her blade at the ready.

"_**What are you doing?"**_

Em smirked and lashed out with the blade, stabbing the worm in the eye. "This!" She thrust harder, driving her blade into the worms nervous center and sighed in relief when it collapsed.

"_**Ah, **_**that **_**is my smart little Persephone.**_**"**

Em growled. "Shut the fuck up, Hades."

/-/-/-/-/

She stumbled into the encampment at the core of the Silva Forest just as the sun began to set and sighed. '_Safe now. Relaxing._'

Her sword hung limply, as did her sword arm, and she shambled slowly between the tents until she got to the center of the encampment, encountering a warm fire and her friends. "Emmie!

She glanced over at Candi and cracked a smile. "Wow, Emmie, what _happened?_ You're covered in nasty stuff and cuts and bruises."

Em blinked. "I had to fight my way here. What do you think happened?"

Kirine looked up from the fire. "Candiroxx, if you could escort Emerinne to her tent and clean her up? Aristis is already being taken care of."

Em perked up. "He's already safe in camp?"

Candi nodded. "Yessu. He showed up about ten minutes ago. I already healed him."

Em nodded. "After you."

Candi lead her into a nearby tent and helped Em out of her clothes. Em winced at her bruises and cuts, several of which reopened when she undressed. Candi took a handful of silvery-blue mana and ran it along her cuts and bruises. Em hissed at the stinging itch of her injuries healing so quickly and clenched her jaw as a particularly bad gash on her side closed. "I don't know why it always stings when I heal wounds like this. I'm sorry Emmie."

Em stood and wiped a tear from her cheek and sighed. "What's next?"

Candi pulled the cover back on the tub placed in the middle of the tent, and Em smiled at the steam that rolled off the water within. "Thank the gods."

Candi nodded. "There's soap and whatnot on the table next to the tub, and some cosmetics on he vanity over there. Your dress is on the stand by the vanity. Kirine said to take your time, since there's a few hours before she wanted to start. I'm going to go see if Ari needs any help with anything."

Em sunk into the hot water and moaned in contentment as the tightness in her muscles melted at the heat. She slipped a bit further down into the water, holding her breath as she wetted her hair. She came up and reached for the soaps, holding her sopping wet hair out of her face with one hand and grabbing the bottles to examine them with the other. She selected a nice hair cleanser and started massaging it into her hair and scalp. She grabbed a nearby bucket and filled it with water from the tub before pouring it on herself to rinse the soap from her hair.

She continued with a conditioning oil and body soap, rinsing well to try to rid herself of the residue, scrubbing her skin to ensure all traces of the grime from her journey were gone. She stood and stepped out onto the rug covering the floor of her tent and grabbed the nearby towel and began to dry off. She paused for a moment before pulling up her menu and setting her sliders to reveal her features.

She towel dried her hair and sat on the stool at the vanity and went over the selection. Em pouted and picked through, finally selecting a pale blue shadow which she applied to her lid before covering with a silver, a silvery white liner, a hint of black mascara and a touch of carmine for her lips. She pulled her dress on once that was completed, clasping the cloak onto the chest plate before turning to her hair.

She pouted at the mess of coppery curls and sighed. She ran her hands through it to pull out the most of the tangles and settled for scrunching it, accenting the curls. As she finished, Candi peeped her head in. "Emmie how's it-wow."

Em turned and looked at her. "What?"

Candi smiled softly. "You look beautiful, Emmie."

Em smiled. "Thanks. Everything ready out there?"

She nodded. "Pretty much. Kirine wants to start in about a half hour."

Em sighed. "I assume I'm supposed to stay in here until I'm called?"

Candi nodded. "Mhm. Kirine said she'd call."

Em sighed and pulled a book out of her inventory and began to read. Candi read the title. "_Senseless_? What's that about?"

Em looked up. "Fanfiction authors will write, regardless of the situation, I suppose. This is the latest installment in a Fanfiction I've been reading. Just so happened that the author was a Milletian."

Candi nodded. "Well you have fun with that. I'll come get you when Kirine says to."

Em sighed and turned back to her book. Her eyes flew across the words, and a slow but bright blush came to her cheeks as things grew intimate between her two favorite characters.

_"His lips crashed against hers, and she responded in kind, twining her hand in his hair and pulling gently to keep him close, as though afraid that something would rip him from her grasp. He picked her up and held her close, wrapping her legs around his waist as he carried her to support her back against a nearby tree as the moon began to bleed crimson._

_He broke the kiss and nipped at her lips, her cheek, her neck. He bit down gently on her neck and sucked, drawing tiny moans from her like trickles of water from a well. She closed her eyes and savoured the feeling, leaving her hand to rest on the back of his neck as he bit and sucked at the supple, tender, milky flesh of the joint of her neck and shoulder. Her spare hand wandered down and gently cupped his manhood and she smirked as he stopped, pulling away to look her in the eyes. _

_'Love...you have no clue what you do to me.'_

_She kissed him, running her tongue along his lower lip, growling softly in contentment. 'I think I may have an idea, my heart.' _

_He undid his breeches quickly and shoved her white embroidered skirts out of the way, teasing her entrance with his-"_

Candi stuck her head back in the tent, and Em's head shot up from her book, her eyes wide and her cheeks flushed. Candi gave her an odd look, but shrugged. "Ready?"

Em swallowed and tried to calm herself, running over paperwork that she still had to do for the guild when they got home until she felt the heat leave her cheeks. "Yes, I believe so." She stood from the stool at her vanity and smoothed her dress, the low light of the candles in her tent accentuating the icy designs and shadowing the fur of her silvery fur cloak, bringing out the red highlights of her copper hair to set the colour ablaze. Candi stared, and Em smiled as she walked forward to leave the tent.

As Em stepped out of the tent, she was glad for the torches scattered about camp, lighting the pathways to the center of the camp where Kirine stood in the middle of an intricate circle drawn in heat hard packed snow. There stood Ari, her predominantly black dress a shock against the snow, the gold embroidery shining brightly in the firelight given off by the torches nearby and the small bonfire that towered behind Kirine. Em took her place at Ari's side and smiled.

Ari took a lock of her hair in his fingers and twisted the ringlet around before letting it fall back against her breast. "Stunning. Flame red against the white of your dress and the snow."

Em smiled up at him and twined her fingers with his. "This is the beauty of the unhidden heart, my love."

Kirine raised her arms and held her palms open to the sky. "We have come here on this, the longest and coldest night of the year to join this couple in the eyes of the spirits and the gods so that nature itself might give to them it's most holy of blessings. Emerinne of the Far Mountain and Aristis of the Northern Snows...do you wish to proceed?"

Em nodded once. "Yes."

Ari looked at the smaller female nest to him then back to Kirine. "Without a doubt."

Kirine nodded and turned to the east and crouched, scribing a symbol in a smaller circle in the circle with her finger. "May you be blessed by the element of air. As the sun rises in the east, so shall you rise next to each other. May you be blessed with communication, intellectual growth, and wisdom until the end of days."

Kirine turned to the south, repeating the process. "May you be blessed by the element of fire. As the flames of a fire will spark and burn brightly before lowering into a comfortable blaze, so shall you have the same spark of emotion, undying and comfortable. May you be blessed by vitality, creativity, and passion."

Em gripped Ari's hand as Kirine turned to the west and repeated the process again. "May you be blessed by the element of water. As the river carves its path out amongst the mountains, so too shall you carve your path through life as one whole. May you be blessed with friendship, intuition, caring, understanding, and love."

Ari squeezed her hand reassuringly as Kirine turned to the north and crouched one last time to inscribe one last glyph. "May you be blessed by the element of earth. As the mountain stands strong and the tree digs it's roots deep for security and nourishment, so too may you stand strong together and find roots in one another. May you be blessed with tenderness, happiness, compassion, and sensuality.

"Across the eons, the progression of mortals has had no greater culmination than the union of people in love. From the time when the first goddess begat her first child, there has been the possibility of companionship...and the possibility of loneliness. From the time Nature invented sexual reproduction, love has served as a quickening. In the three races, as self-aware beings, sexuality has provided a way that love can entwine not only the bodies, but the hearts, minds and souls of those in love.

"We mortals have sadly turned away from Nature's harmony for most of our lives. Elves have their spirit guides, as do the humans and the giants, but that is not true harmony with nature. There is still war, and loneliness, and desolation, and the soul of Erinn, of Nature, mourns. Commitment such as the one Emerinne and Aristis are about to make in their love calls the stars and the earth to soar in their happiness at the rediscovery of love, joy, and harmony between two souls, both unified and separate in their existence."

There was a sniffle from somewhere in the crowd at Kirine's words. Ankou gently took his wife's hand, Mezz petted Kiru's side, several others shifted where they stood. Em smiled as Ari rubbed small circles on her hand with his thumb. Kirine began again.

"Love, like nature, has its seasons. It's spring is discovery, the pulse of the senses, learning the mind and heart of each other. Love blossoms within like the blossoms on springtime trees and plants.

"Its summer is the most active part of love as it is of life,mane brings with it commitment and strength. It can bring life giving back to life with the bearing of children as trees will bear fruit. It brings with it the sharing of joys and sorrows, the merging of body and soul so that the couple may act as a whole and as individuals. Their love grows as the green trees and the barley field do grow in the heat of the summer sun.

"The fall of love is the contentment of love that knows every facet of the couples being. Passion remains with this totality, and the ease of companionship is realized. The heart smoothes love into a steady light, beautiful and glorious as the autumn leaves.

"The winter of love brings parting and sorrow. But love remains as the life within dormant trees, bare trunks in the snow waiting for the renewal of love in spring as life and love begin anew.

"Now is the time of summer. Emerinne and Aristis have gathered here before you, their friends, to make a statement of their commitment to one another and their love."

She took each of them by the hand and pulled them within the circle before handing them each the blade they fought with to get to the grove. "These blades saw you through your struggles to reach this point. Let these blades serve as a symbol of your devotion to one another."

Em and Ari looked at the blades they were given, and Kirine nodded. They each closed their right hand on the blade and drew the blade down, slicing their palms. They opened their hands and Kirine took the swords from them. She turned them to face one another and placed their hands together, cut to cut, before tying their hands together with a woven crimson belt.

"Blood now binds you physically as your souls bound themselves in your love. When two become one, there must be understanding, there must be sacrifice. Emerinne, make your vows to your love in the name of love, so long as your love shall last."

Emerinne took the vessel Kirine offered her and poured the wine into the goblet Kirine held in her other hand. The traded the held items with Kirine and offered the goblet to Ari. "Let this cup represent my body, the wine my love. As you hold me, drink from me and take my love within you. So long as I live, my love shall never run dry and it will always be there to fill you when the world leaves you parched. I vow on my honour and my life to love you, honour you and respect you, communicate with you and support you, comfort you and appreciate you, in sickness and in health, so long as my love shall last."

Ari drank from the cup and handed it to Kirine, who then offered Em her Hermit Staff. Em presented it to Ari. "This staff is my weapon. My weapon is my life. In your hands, I know it is safe, as I am. I will take you as my spouse, now and always, so long as love shall last."

Kirine nodded as Ari took the staff and set it down. "Aristis, make your vows to your love in the name of love, so long as love shall last."

Ari took the wine vessel from Kirine and poured the wine before trading the vessel for the goblet. He offered it to Em, and she took it, smiling. "Let this cup represent my body, the wine, my love. So long as I live, my love will never run dry. When the world leaves you parched, let my love quench your needs and leave you refreshed. I vow on my love, my honour and my life to love you, honour you and respect you, communicate with you and support you, comfort you and appreciate you, in sickness and in health, so long as my love shall last."

Em drank from the cup and handed it to Kirine, who sat it down and presented Ari with his Rebis Guard Cylinder. Ari presented it to Em. "This cylinder is my weapon, and a Milletian's weapon is their life. You hold my life in your hands. So my weapon guards you, so shall I. As my weapon is safe in your hands, I know my life is as well. I will take you as my wife, now and always, so long as love shall last."

Kirine nodded and sat between the two a table and sat on the table three candles. She gestured to the outer two. "These two candles are yourselves. Each of you is a whole and complete being." She handed them a taper candlelit from the fire behind her. "Light your candles." Em lit hers, and after handing the taper candle to Ari, he lit his and handed the taper back to Kirine.

"Together, light the third candle, but do not extinguish the other two. In marriage one does not lose themselves, but rather, you add something new; a relationship, and the capacity to merge into one another without losing sight of who you are as an individual." They picked up their candles and lit the third candle, setting the candles down in a row.

Kirine brought forth the rings, and handed the larger to Em and the smaller to Ari. "Let us bless the rings."

"Circles represent eternity, and though life is finite and ephemeral, love is everlasting and eternal, the creative force that binds us and the force that brings new life. The blessings of the wind upon these rings and your love, that you share communication and creativity.

"The blessings of fire upon these rings and your love, that you share passion and the spirit.

"The blessings of water upon these rings and your love, that you share love and compassion.

"The blessings of earth upon these rings and your love, that you hare health and sexuality.

"We of the three races were born of stardust and the oceans, of the whims of the gods in Falias, of erupting volcanoes and the bones of Erinn. In celebrating love, you celebrate a heritage of all of these things, of every love of every mortal since the beginning of life itself. In making a commitment to loving each other, you share that which is best in all of us and bring a moment of shining light to the world."

Kirine looked at Em. "Place the ring upon your lover's finger on the hand closest to her heart and repeat after me; 'With this ring, I thee wed.' "

Em slipped the ring onto Ari's left ring finger and smiled up at him before saying calmly, "With this ring, I thee wed."

Kirine turned to Ari. "Place the ring upon your lover's finger on the hand closest to her heart and repeat after me; 'With this ring, I thee wed.' "

Ari slipped the ring onto Em's ring finger on her left hand before caressing her cheek and stated simply, "With this ring, I thee wed."

Kirine smiled. "I now declare you to be wed, bound in mind, body and soul." She clasped their bound hands and channeled mana into their hands to heal them before untying their hands. "You may now kiss your lover to seal your union."

Ari cupped Em's cheeks and pulled her into a firm kiss, and Em tangled one hand in Ari's hair as she hooked her elbow behind Ari's neck as their guild mates cheered around them.

Kirine raised her palms to the heavens and proclaimed loudly that the festivities could begin, and immediately the mead began to flow like water. Em and Ari circulated the crowd, receiving their congratulatory remarks without leaving one another's sides. Ari looked at Em and smiled, pulling her into another kiss. "Want to go somewhere?"

Em grinned and followed her lover to a quiet place just outside the camp. His lips crashed against hers, and she responded in kind, twining her hand in his hair and pulling gently to keep him close, as though afraid that something would rip him from her grasp. He picked her up and held her close, wrapping her legs around his waist as he carried her to support her back against a nearby tree as the moon began to bleed crimson, a total lunar eclipse on the winter solstice at high moon blessing their union with its presence.

Translations:

Maman! Comment ai-je déménagé dans le chambre d'Ari?-"Mommy! How did I move to Ari's room?"

Il y t'a pris.-"He took you there."


End file.
